A Lesson in Descriptive Writing

Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives!! They paint such important pictures in our minds. Colors, numbers, shapes, and sizes.... we can't clearly envision an object without adjectives.

That was the theme of the "Snowman Draw" game that we played one cold winter's day. Here is how you play:

1. Draw a snowman and have fun with the art work.

2. Write a description that is incredibly detailed. Describe every aspect of your picture with size, shape, color, and number adjectives.

3. Exchange your descriptions with a partner.

4. Attempt to draw their snowman, while they draw yours.

5. The winners' pictures will look almost identical, because the description will be so vivid and easy to follow.

Christina (4th grade) drew Caley's (4th grade) picture perfectly! You'll see why as you read Caley's excellent description. She even remembered to break her description down into paragraphs, making it so much easier to follow. Congratulations, girls!

Caley's Snowman:

My snowman is three snowballs: the top one is small, the middle one is bigger, and the bottom one is the biggest.

He has a purple flower headband, with six purple flowers on the top snowball. The flowers have orange middles.

He has two black coal eyes and a black coal smile that has exactly eight pieces of coal. Right above his mouth is a perfect orange carrot nose.

He has a lei made out of seven purple flowers with orange middles that matches his headband. It is on his middle snowball. Also in his middle, he has three black coal buttons going from top to bottom.

His arms are nothing but brown sticks with three twigs at the end. They are sticking straight out.

Next my snowman has a dark green grass skirt going all the way to the sides of the bottom snowball.

My snowman is standing upright looking at the dark blue ocean. There are two palm trees in the background. The one on the left is facing left with a dark brown trunk, five big dark green leaves right on top of the trunk, and three dark brown coconuts. The one on the right is facing the right with a dark brown trunk, four big dark green leaves (one of which is going out of the picture), and three dark brown coconuts right on top of the trunk.

Right above the snowman's head there are two white clouds. In between them there is a yellow sun with no rays.

Here is what Caley drew, and described so beautifully:

And here's what Christina got from it. She is an excellent, careful reader, don't you think?

I just love this assignment. We did it first semester, too, with monsters at Halloween time. (I think I like these sweet little snowmen better!)