On Demand Descriptive Writing: The Snowman Draw Game

 Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives!  They tell size, shape, color, and number.  And if you don't include them, your reader will get an incomplete picture in their mind of what you are trying to describe!  That was the theme of our On Demand Writing Game,  "Snowman Draw."  Here is how you play:

Step 1: Draw a snowman, complete with background if you have time.

Step 2: Describe every aspect of your snowman and background.  Don't leave out a single detail!  Because....

Step 3: Trade descriptions with a partner.  Now you will draw each other's snowman ONLY by reading what they have written.  No talking or asking questions allowed!

As you can see, this game gives students instant feedback about their ability to use detail in their writing.  Many of these students played "Monster Draw" just months before, and they showed amazing improvement from then to now!  The winners were voted on by the class.  Enjoy!

Julia's Snowman (4th grade)

Warning: You should probably read each paragraph first, then draw, and move to the next paragraph. The last paragraph is probably the hardest to draw.

My snowman is traditionally shaped, plain, and not very interesting. His smallest ball is at the top of the snowman, around the middle of the page, the medium ball in the middle, attached to the smaller one by the smaller ball over lapping the middle ball in the top quarter. The middle ball does the same for the largest one. All of those balls are white.

The bottom ball is the most boring. All it has are two, black, medium size shaped, and round buttons.

The middle one has the same black balls as the largest one, and it has two, plain, traditionally shaped, brown arms that jut out at the middle of each side. The middle ball also has a light cerulean and true green, striped scarf, that is between the middle ball and the small ball. The scarf has 12 sections, and light cerulean and true green alternate starting from the left with blue, adn going to the right with blue, green, blue, green, and so on.

The smaller ball has a black hat that is formed by two rectangles, kind of like a top hat, but without a buckle. The eyes are black, small, and of course there are two of them. The nose is the same shape and size, a little below the eyes, and in the exact middle of them. My snowman’s smile is formed with the same black circles as the other facial features, only that there are five of them. 

This snowman stands on plain, white ground, and the snow is a pattern falling around him. It starts with three circles at the top of the page, dividing the page in fourths, then four snowflakes (circles) below them, splitting that part into fifths, and right in between the first three snowflakes. The pattern then repeats and creates a kind of diamond shape with every four snowflakes that are together. If you see this snowflake pattern at the right angle, you will see that it is only eight diagonals. It is crucial to see it like that because the coloring will alternate between cerulean blue and white, starting with blue, and coloring each of the snowflakes in the diagonal the same color. The paper is vertically placed.

Julia wrote so clearly, that her partner Jessie (4th grade) drew this twin!

Kevin's Snowman (6th grade)

My drawing is vertical. My snowman is in the center of the paper. He is made up of three snowballs. The first one is towards the top of the paper in the middle . The first snowball is circular. It is pretty “medium-ish”. In this snowball, there are the snowman’s two eyes, spaced evenly horizontally. They are towards the top of the first snowball. They are black and are pretty small. He has a carrot nose pointing downwards. It is orange and is a downward-facing isosceles triangle. It is not very big. Underneath his nose are four dots shaped so that they are my snowman’s mouth. They are arranged so that he is smiling. All of them are circular and are pretty small as well. 

My snowman’s second snowball is in the middle of the paper. The second snowball is bigger than the first but not too big. He has to round coal buttons (black) which are bigger than the eyes but still not too big. The buttons are evenly spaced throughout the second snowball, both horizontally and vertically. My snowman has two stick hands (brown) protruding from the second snowball. The stick part of it is not short but not long. He has three fingers. This applies for both stick arms.

The third snowball is toward the bottom of the paper. There are two coal buttons (black) in the third snowball. They are also both evenly spaced horizontally and vertically. That’s it for the third snowball 

He is standing on a flat black line. My snowman has a mini snowman next to him. It is the exact same as the other snowman but with smaller parts. The first snowball is towards the right of the big snowman. It is about as big as one of the buttons in the third snowball on the big snowman. He has tiny black eyes, a downward facing carrot nose, and four black pieces of circular coal to form a smiling mouth. The second snowball is bigger than the first snowball and has two pieces of black circular coal in/on it. This snowman has stick arms that are both not very long, but has red oven mitts for hands instead. The third snowball is bigger than the first two and there are two small but not tiny buttons on it

On both snowmen they have a top hat. It is as wide as their heads and as tall as two times their heads. The size of the top hat varies with the size of the snowman. In the middle of the top hat there is a yellow buckle. The strap thing is black and there is a yellow square in the middle holding the left strap and the right strap together.

In the background, there is a yellow circular sun in the top left hand corner that is as big as your hand. In the top right hand corner, there is a bullet train. The bullet train is as long as your index finger. It has seven windows evenly spaced apart. It is riding along one brown line/rail right below it. Below the first rail is another line/rail (brown). There is a green triangular mountain that starts from one edge of the paper and goes to the other. It starts from the middle of the left side, the peak is towards the upper left-ish, and it ends on the right side. The sides are green but the mountain isn’t green. There is a black squiggly line from the left side of the mountain to the right side. It starts from 5 cm from the peak on the left side and ends 5 cm from the peak on the right side. There are metal supporters that support the rails from the bullet trains. They are grey. They are 0.5 cm thick. They are evenly spaced from left to right. Their length depends on where they meet the mountain.

To the left of the snowman there is a tree. It is made of 3 green triangles stacked on top of a 1 cm brown stump. 

That is my picture you are done. YAY!

Kevin and Claire (6th grade) are old pro's with this game!  Look at this match!

My Snowman, by Tyler (6th grade)

My snowman is in the middle-right side of the drawing.  He is exactly 2 and a half inches tall.  The bottom ball, which is the biggest, has one button on the top of it and 2 small black boots on the bottom.  The middle ball is a little bit smaller and has the last 2 buttons on it.  Also he has 2 stick arms facing out of the middle ball with three fingers on each stick.  The top ball of the snowman is small and has 2 coal eyes, a pickle nose, 4 coal for a smile, and on top of it is a black top hat.

Background

To the right of him is a Christmas tree.  It is 4 and a half inches tall.  There is a sun in the top right of the paper from your perspective.  To the left of you there is a suburban house.  It is going off to the left of the paper.  The roof goes off to the left side of the paper and is skinny and it is colored blue. The door is just off to the left of the middle of the page. Right next to the door to the right side is a garage.  The borders on it are red but the garage door is brown.

Hope you like my Snowman.

Right down to the pickle nose, Ryan (4th grade) nailed all of these details!

My Snowman, by Carissa (4th grade)

My snowman has three main snowballs as the base. The biggest one is on the bottom, the 2nd biggest is on top of the biggest one, and lastly the smallest ball is on top of the 2nd biggest ball. It is sitting on plain white snow.

On top of the snowman's head is a halo crown. It is colored an orangy-yellow. In the middle  of the back, there is a red heart with a thin black cross leaning to the left. On both sides of the heart, there are one beat music notes. On the left the note is facing to the right, and on the right the note is facing on the left. Next, on the front part of the halo, there are math signs. On the very end on the left there is an addition sign, then moving to the right there’s the subtraction sign, next a multiplication sign, and last but not least an division sign at the end right of the halo. On the right side of the snowman’s head are four music notes. The first is just one beat, the second one is two. Then above the note with two beats is a one beat, but a staccato. Then below the staccato note there is a three beat note. 

For the face, there are two black circular eyes. Then in the center of the face, there is a petite carrot nose. It is pointing to the left. Just below the carrot nose is the mouth. It is made out of six little stone pebbles. My snowman also has a scarf that is a greenish blue that is wrapped around the bottom of the head, and has two little pieces of the scarf hanging out. 

On the middle snowball, there are three little red hearts going straight down the middle. On the sides there are medium sized twigs with three little sticks pointing outwards. 

On the bottom there is nothing.

There are two skinny trees on both sides. There is also a pattern on the bark on the tree. The one on the right is taller. They have tiny, weak branches coming out of the top. On the left there are 10 branches, and on the right there are 13. Floating in the air are 14 snowflakes. They have just four lines. There are 3 whites ones and 3 light blue on the right side. On the left side there are 8 light blue ones. 

What a creative and beautiful snowman, and what a thorough description!  Sammie (9th grade) was able to draw this match!

My Snowman, by James (5th grade)

     My snowman is made of three balls: one large ball, one medium, and one small.  My snowman takes up 2/3 of the page and sits on the bottom.  The paper is vertical.

     My top ball has black glasses.  It has one pupil per lens, and there are two lenses.  His mouth is a horizontal line.  It has two buck teeth right next to each other.  The head is entirely yellow, except for the yes, teeth, and lens.

    The middle ball has two green money symbol eyes.  His mouth is a black oval cut in half.  It is also yellow.

    The bottom ball has a small frown for its right eye, and an eye with a pupil in it.  It has the same mouth as the previous one with a tongue sticking out of its left corner.  

    There is a tree on your right that is a vertical brown line that goes up to the top of the middle ball.  It has diagonal green lines facing the bottom.  There is a crescent moon that is hello, and next to the right side of your name.  The sky is dark blue and only goes to the top of the top ball from the top of the paper.

James is a pro at this game!  He is so carefully detailed!  His partner Quinn (5th grade), had no problem drawing this twin.  I love the buck teeth!

Victoria's Snowman (5th grade)

     The floor goes straight, left to right.  There is a medium blue line down the middle.  To your left of the line, the floor is completely blue.  To your right, color the floor medium purple.

     My daddy snowman has a big, completely gray snowball at the bottom.  The bottom ball is on top of the horizontal line on the floor.  On top of the gray snowball, there is a long, medium-sized yellow triangle.  The triangle has medium sized arms with five twigs as hands on each arm.  The arm is brown, facing down sightly with two blue icicles on each arm.  

    The head of the daddy snowman is a small circle, entirely purple, with two small round circles in the middle of the face.  The small round circles are the eyes.  The eyes are white, with one black dot in each.  The snowman has a medium afro on his head.  The afro is bumpy, and shaped like a half circle.  It is rainbow colored horizontally.  The red starts on your left.  Instead of the last color of the rainbow (purple), it will be red.  The rainbow repeats only once.

    To the daddy snowman's left (your right), there is a miniature daddy, but with no afro.  His triangle middle is blue, and his face has a black outlined white face with two coal eyes and a small green triangle as a nose.  His arms are red and going up with only two twigs as fingers.  He has arm pit hair that's green.  The hair is curly and looks like broccoli.

    To the right of the daddy snowman (your left), there is a huge popsicle stick.  It is the size of your pinky.  The rest is a yellow popsicle top.  Horizontally down, there is a blue line that's zig zagging down.  To your left of the line, there are five red dots going down evenly spaced on an imaginary line.

    On top of that big popsicle is a small popsicle.  It's orange and has no zig zags or dots.

    There is a balloon hovering over the small snowman with a red outline and two red dots as eyes, with a big red smile spread over the face.  The balloon has a curvy gray string hanging down, the size of your pointer finger.

Wow!  Victoria didn't miss one detail!  Penelope (6th grade) was able to draw this match!

Ella's Snowman (5th grade)

    

    My snowman is happy and relaxed.  He is made of three snowballs: the bottom is large, the middle is a bit smaller than the bottom ball, and the top is smaller than the middle snowball.  He sits on a lounge chair near the pool.

    He has a bald head.  He wears pitch black sunglasses.  You can not see his coal eyes.  He has a small, pointy, orange carrot in between his sunglasses.  There are vertical lines in the carrot, and the carrot points to the bottom right corner.  Lastly, he has a big, bright smile made of five dot-like pieces of coal.

    He has a blank chest with twig arms sprouting out of his sides.  His arms stretch behind his head, making a V-like shape starting from the side of his head to the side of his middle snowball.  The middle snowball has part of the top covered behind the top ball.

    Like the middle snowball, the bottom ball is covered by the middle ball.  He has no pants, but he has twig legs.  The legs are bent and cross each other.  His feet have oval, yellow flip flops.

    In the background is an upright, bean-shaped pool. The pool has tiles around it.  The tiles are beige/peach.  The pool water is light blue, with a pink, donut-shaped float.  He sits on a green and pink lounge chair.  The pool is on the right side of the paper.  The lounge chair's top is on the left, and the bottom ends in the right.  Near the bottom left is a lemonade.  The lemonade is in a clear glass, and the glass if all of yellow lemonade.  There is a pink straw and a lemon on the bottom.  At the top of the glass are three ice cubes that are white.  In addition, at the bottom of the chair is a sunscreen bottle.  It is a squire type.  It is white and light blue.  It is labeled "2000 PF."  Last, at the top of the paper, are clouds and a sun.  The sun is at the top right.  It is a yellow ball with orange triangles surrounding it.  One cloud is near the top left of the paper.  It is puffy and fluffy.  The other cloud has part of its right side covered by the sun.

WOW!  What a cute, summer snowman!  Ella gave such perfect detail, and Clara (6th grade) read so carefully,  that the class voted them the winners!

My beginner authors played the game a little differently.  They drew a snowman, then described it with adjectives, too.  Their game was different in that it was a guessing game.  After I read each description, students were to point out which snowman fit the description.  A first-time guess meant the student aced the use of adjectives!  Our entire class loved Mika's (4th grade) cute art and very thorough description!

    My snowman is made up of three aqua snowballs, size small, medium, and big.  It has round and cute eyes.  Its nose is medium, pointing to the right.  It has six rocks for the mouth with a beautiful smile.  On the top of its head, it has a purple and orange pom pom hat.  My snowman has two big brown arms.  I love its clothing!  It's wearing three round black buttons.  The background has snow and 54 snowflakes.  I think my snowman is classic, like in the movies.

Congratulations to our winners!  I hope everyone enjoyed the lesson in the importance of ADJECTIVES!

 

Powerful Paragraphs!

     One of my favorite paragraph writing assignments is "No Boring Sentences."  I present my students with 10 sentence starters/styles, and they are to pick 5-7 of them to form an innovative, powerful paragraph that is exciting to read, because no two sentences are alike!  They get to choose from three choices:

1. Describe an animal/nature picture.

2. Write a one-paragraph informative "animal report" paragraph about your picture.

3. Write a one-paragraph short story about your animal picture.

    In the following paragraphs, you will find all sorts of awesome sentence styles.  You will find vivid verbs, sentences that start with "Because" clauses, strong adjectives, cleverly placed adverbs, a variety of punctuation, and more!  Enjoy these three samples representing the three choices above!

Choice #1:                                         The Wolf, by Claire (6th grade)

This beautiful grey wolf has his eye on some mysterious prey.  He has his tongue stuck out, as if he can already taste his meal. Abruptly, he pounces on the prey, killing it with one well-placed scratch. Dragging the body of the dead animal in his mouth, he lumbers clumsily through the snow towards the cave he has come to call home. The day, as well as the life of the prey, has come to a timely end.

Choice #2:

The Deepest Diver

by Nirav (5th grade)

    Sperm Whales are enormously powerful creatures. They are 66 feet long and have the heaviest brain in the world. These massive creatures are also the deepest diving mammals, and one Sperm whale can dive down far enough to see the wreck of the Titanic. Because of their amazing diving abilities, a Sperm Whale can hold its breath for 100 minutes! They use echolocation to find enormous squid to power their huge bodies. They live in the frigid water of the Arctic and Southern oceans. Truly, these are such magnificent dwellers of the deep!

Choice #3:

A Funny Hamster

                                         by Samuel (4th grade)

    My dad bought me a tiny brown dwarf hamster with fluffy fur and long whiskers for Christmas. Obviously, it was super hard to take care of, because the hamster would climb the cage and poop outside of the bars. One day, the hamster did something I didn’t expect it to do: it climbed the bars on its cage, all the way until it reached the top.  I screamed, “Mom, the hamster’s climbing the cage!!” Just when my mom came to my room, the hamster leaped down from the bars and landed on its wheel, and started to run normally again. Because of that, my mom got mad because I started chuckling. It was such a funny moment!

Choice #3: The Fox's Meal

by Theo (5th grade)