Appetizing Adjectives ( With Printable Freebie!)

In our class we have been working diligently on adding details to our writing. We have talked this week about making sure our writing is crystal clear! We began the week by talking about adding adjectives to our writing. 

I love reading and my kiddos do too! I find that relating what they are learning in writing to what authors use in the books they love to read, really encourages them to challenge themselves. 

For this lesson, I asked the students to pull our their journal. Since it is still early in the year, the students  don't know a ton about me yet. I got them interested by saying, "I want to see if you can guess where I live. I will show you where I live but I would like you to draw it first. I'm going to tell you about my house and I want you to draw it in your journal. After you show me, we will check to see if you were close." I then proceeded with this very vague sentence, "My house sits on top of a hill." With that sentence only, I asked the students to draw my "house" in their journal. After about a minute, I walked around saying, "What! That looks nothing like my house!"

On the projector, I proceeded to pull up a picture of a giant castle.



The students were shocked and replied with, "You didn't tell us that! You just said it was on top of a hill!" This lead to a discussion about how I could have altered my sentence to include more adjectives to make it more vivid for my audience. They agreed that if I used words like, giant, huge, regal, and royal it would have been more evident that I lived in a castle. I even had one sweetie reply with, "Wait, so if you live in a castle, doesn't that make you a princess?" I had to agree with her reasoning.

I had the students try again. This time, I wanted them to draw my breakfast. I said, “ Coffee steaming, sizzling bacon, and butter melting on top of my three, steaming hot pancakes sat in front of me. The smell in the kitchen told me breakfast was ready."  I then asked the students to draw what I ate!

Again, the students held up what they drew. Their drawings were much more detailed and more accurate. We then discussed how adjectives  helped them to draw a better picture.

I wanted them to show off their skills at this point! In their journal, I had them list five adjectives describing their favorite food. I then passed out the napkin foldable. I created this by printing it two sided. (Word doc. here)

 On the foldable, I had them describe their favorite food without using any of the five adjectives they listed ! The best writers showcase versatility.

On their paper plates, I asked them to illustrate their favorite food. We matted the plates and the napkin foldable on a red piece of construction paper and we put together this adorable bulletin board! The students loved reading their classmates favorite food and guessing what they were. Let me tell you, my amazing authors made me hungry!