Different words for "Said"

A few weeks ago, our teacher showed us a slideshow she made. We watched an episode on Brain Pop about how to write a good story and the different types of ways to write a story. After we watched that, we went back to the slideshow and our teacher showed us a slide that had the word Said in the middle. She told us to think of other words to use for Said. Here are the 10 words I remember that the class chose to replace Said: 

1. exclaimed

2. asked

3. replied/answered

4. joked

5. mentioned

6. told

7. barked

8. laughed

9. lied

10. roared

I think that this activity was VERY, VERY helpful for our writing. Especially the kids in my class that want to become authors or something when they grow up! My passion IS to write stories, so this was a REALLY good activity!