We started off our first meeting focusing on writing fabulous sentences loaded with detail. We talked about how adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases describing where and when can turn a boring sentence into an exciting one. The following week, the students worked on putting many detailed sentences into paragraphs to describe in the greatest detail a snowman they had drawn. The Snowman Draw Game works like this:
1. Draw a snowman complete with background and clothing.
2. Write a description of your picture so thorough and vivid, that when someone else reads it, they can picture your snowman perfectly. Every sentence should mention size, shape, color, and number!
3. Trade descriptions with a partner.
4. Attempt to draw your partner's snowman. If they are twins, you did a great job!
Winners of the game would win jelly beans and blog honors, so here they are!
Riya's Snowman (3rd grade)
There are three balls. The first is sky blue that is shaded lightly. The middle is sky blue that is shaded darkly. The last is the same color that is shaded lightly.
The first one has two black eyes and one long, orange nose. There are seven raisins for his mouth. He has a black top hat that is small.
The middle has four small round red buttons. He has two brown sticks which have three fingers.
The last ball is very fat and has one big yellow snowflake in the middle of it.
The background has seventeen snowflakes. There is no snow on the ground yet.
Riya divided her writing into such easy to understand paragraphs that Elliott (3rd grade) came up with this:
Emma's Snowgirl (4th grade)
Sianna: Read the whole thing before you do it.
My snowgirl is quite an athlete. She is made of three snowballs: the top one is small, the second one is medium, and the third one is big. She is small on the page.
She has brown hair to her shoulders. She has two black eyes and one orange carrot nose. She has five black circular buttons for a mouth. She is on your right of the page, and above the middle line.
She has a soccer jersey that is purple with the number 12 on it. She has two arms and three fingers.
On the last snowball she has two soccer cleats and a soccer ball that is right next to her on your left.
The whole field is slightly colored green, with two goals with squares around them. On your far left, she has a score board that says "Home" and "Visitor." The "home" score is 4, and the "visitor" is 2. They are in yellow. In the middle is a line with a circle. The goals are black.
Emma had such a detailed background that I was afraid her partner wouldn't be able to match it, but she described it so well that here is how Sianna (4th grade) did:
Roya's Snowman (3rd grade)
My snowman has three balls. The head has a green and magenta hat that says 49ers. There are two eyes that are pencil colored. He has an orange carrot nose that has four columns. The mouth is seven dots.
He is wearing a yellow 49ers jersey. The numbers on the jersey are pink. He has twig arms. Each has three sticks, and one is holding a brown football.
The bottom is just plain white.
There is an orange sun with red tips.
Katy (3rd grade) and Roya made great partners! Look how close these are:
Will's Snowman (3rd grade)
My snowman has three balls. The bottom is huge, the middle is smaller, and the top is the smallest.
My snowman's head has one blue eye and a solid red smiling mouth.
The body has a horizontal string going through the middle with a green dot in the middle. The body also has six yellow dots with circles around them: three on the top, and three on the bottom.
The bottom is gray, not anything else, and there is a black full moon to my snowman's left. The last thing about my snowman is a light black sky at the top of the page.
P.S. For the light black sky, just use a black crayon or anything black and color lightly.
The class loved Will's "Alien" snowman, and how his partner Jade (5th grade) drew it!:
Arushi's Snowman (4th grade)
She wears a pink pearl necklace and a pink vest with green buttons. She has two skinny stick arms with three fingers. In her right hand, she has a miniscule snowball. In her left hand, she has a purple leash with a dog attached to it. But we'll get to the dog later.
My snowgirl has medium sized green boots, but she isn't wearing any pants.
She is standing on a snowy hill with her tiny dog, who has a snowball at her paws. the dog is white with brown ears, a brown tail, one brown front leg, one brown back leg, and the other two legs are white. She has brown patches. On her tail, she has a purple bow. In the corner, there is a sun that is not completely showing.
Arushi is so thorough and her description is so easy to follow with her paragraph breakdowns, that a super reader like Reilly (4th grade) could draw this:
Abby's Strange Snowgirl (3rd grade)
My snowgirl is very large and funny. She is made of three snowballs: the bottom one is large, the middle one is medium, and the top one is small. She sits on a peach, sandy beach.
She wears small black sunglasses and has light brown hair down to her shoulders. She also has a small, light brown coconut nose and a medium, red, smiling mouth. She wears a purple tank top, teal shorts, and she has thin, light brown arms with circular hands. She also has orange flip flops with navy blue straps.
She is on a peach, sandy beach with little black dots in the sand. There are two, blue, big waves behind her. The sweating sun with green eyes and pink pupils, a dark green nose, a pink mouth, and orange and yellow rays is behind her on her right.
Abby's use of size, shape, color and number adjectives was outstanding! Her partner Melissa (5th grade) then drew this:
Congratulations to our Snowman Draw Game winners!
