Snowman Draw Game!

 My returning students were very excited to play this  On Demand Writing Game (think Monster Daw a few months back!) where they get instant feedback on the importance of descriptive language and adjectives!  Here's how you play:

Step #1: Draw a snowman, complete with background and plenty of colors.

Step #2: Describe your snowman and scenery with adjectives that tell size, shape, color, and number.  Make sure your writing can be read!  Don't leave out a single detail, because....

Step #3: Trade papers, and draw your partner's snowman as they try to draw yours!

Winners were voted on by the class.  Enjoy this set of amazing artwork and writing!

Kaia's Snowman (5th grade)

        My snowman's head is separated from the body.

        The snowman is on a green and gray slope that goes pu to about 1/3 of the paper.  In the top right corner of the paper, there is a full moon with five different sized craters, and it is colored yellow, and then colored over in a thin layer of pencil.  Below the moon there are two purple birds that look like v's.  On the other side of the paper, there are two more purple v birds at the same height as the first two birds.

        On the top of the hill, there is the snowman's body, but not hte head.  First draw a medium-sized circle on top of the hill, then draw two circle buttons in the middle of the medium circle.  Then draw the stick arms, but make sure they are painted diagonally to the ground.  On top of the medium sized body, draw a bigger circle on top.  

        On the bottom of the big circle, draw a round button.  Then outline all the body in purple.  Then on the right side of the paper on the hill, draw a circle smaller than the medium circle.  Then draw two coal eyes.  Then draw a mouth with seven coal circles, and a carrot nose in yellow-orange, facing the right side of the page.  Then outline the head in purple.  Then on top of the head, draw a black top hat with a stripe of red.

        Net, draw a pink flower on the left side of the page, then draw a smaller purple flower on the left side of the pink one.

Wow!  Kaia was so detailed, and so very creative with her art!  Her clear directions got her partner Aarushi (5th grade) to draw this near-perfect match!

Cora's Snowman (3rd grade)

        This snowman has three snowballs stacked on top of each other: smallest on top, biggest on the bottom.  The biggest one is a bit more oval-ish, but that was an accident.

        The eyes are two big circles with smaller black circles inside.  The black circles are slightly looking up but still not touching the bigger circle.  The eyes are about thumb width apart.

        The nose is a small-ish medium carrot that has no sharp corners.  The carrot starts below the middle of the eyes, about halfway through the head in both directions.  The carroti s facing the right side of the page.  The nose has some lines in it, and is colored with yellow-orange.

        The mouth is right under the nose and is pretty small.  It is close, and softly smiling.  

        There is a kiwi green scarf that is in between the head and the middle snowball.  The tie on the scarf is on the right tassles on the end.  There are some shadows and shading around the scarf in pencil.

        On the second ball there are two star buttons colored with pencil.

        The arms are sticks that have pointy things on the end that look like fingers, but there are only three of them.  The left arm is down and the right arm is up like it is waving.  The left arm has two leaves and the right arm has one.  The sticks are brown and the leaves are kiwi green

        The third ball is blank but behind it is a bumpy line that looks like snow.

Wow!  Cora's description is so clear that Marlo (4th grade) could draw this practical twin! 

Joon's Snowman (4th grade)

        My snowman has two circles, with a square on top.  The bottom one is indigo, the middle is red, and the top has a blue top and black bottom.

        In addition, the middle snowball has an indigo triangle and the bottom has three brown buttons, top to bottom.

        There is a small red sun to the right, up above the snowman.  There are tiny circles surrounding my snowman!  Finally, my snowman has a green line under it, with a brown line under that, stretched to the sides of the paper.

From that clear description, Matthew (4th grade) was able to replicate Joon's snowman precisely!

Angela's Snowman (6th grade)

        This snowman is in the middle of the paper, but the head of the snowman is the length of your middle finger away from the top of the paper, bascially meaning that it is a little higher than the middle to leave space for the ground.  To begin with, a regular snowman's three body parts are usually smallest to biggest, top to bottom, but my snowman is biggest to smallest top to bottom.  In the biggest circle, which is the head, there are two regular eyes the size of your pinky nail.  For the nose, instead of a carrot, it is a 5-pointed star colored in sky blue, about the same size as the eyes.  On the nose's left and right, there are small little circles in red for cheeks.  For the mouth, there are eight small orange triangles to make a smile.  On top of the whole head is a sky-blue star in the center, a little bit bigger than the nose.

        The second body part is a circle slightly smaller than the head, with two star arms sticking out the same size as the star hat on top of the head.  By the way, the stars are diagonal to resemble the regular stick arms.  In the body are two green circles, a little smaller than the eyes.

        In the last part/circle, the circle is smaller than the second one.  A green button/circle is in the part, the same size as the first two.  The rest of the snowman is colored in peach.

        For the ground of orange snow, there are three violet purple stars the size of your pinky nail in the ground.  First, draw a squiggly line under the snowman's bottom part for the ground.  The stars are on the center top, bottom left and bottom right.  There are three squiggly lines on the top left, top right, and bottom center.  The rest of the ground is orange.  There are six yellow stars in the sky, the same size as the star hat.  Three are on the left, three are on the right.  Make sure you scatter them.  The rest of the sky is green, facing out on the top.

Wow!  What detailed writing!  These two girls have won this game before, and make an excellent reading and writing team.  Here is Allison's (6th grade):

Audrey's Snowman (5th grade)

        My snowman has three balls.  All of them are about the size of your fist balled up.  You will draw these with dark blue.  Then shade them with light blue.  The snowman is in the middle of the page.  The first ball has nothing on it.

        The second ball has three dark blue buttons.  They are about the size of the eraser on your pencil.  They are positioned vertically with space in between them for another button.  Next there are two arms sticking out.  They are dark brown.  The arms are horizontal and the width is about the size of the buttons and the length is about an inch.  You should have a shaded in rectangle when you're done.

        The third ball is the face.  There are two eyes that are also the same size as the buttons.  They are black.  Then draw a carrot for the nose.  It is a right triangle.  It is pointing to the right side of the paper.  Next under the carrot, there are six pieces of goal arranged in a smile.  On the outside of the third ball, there is a pair of green ear muffs.  The ball part is even with the eyes.  Draw a curved line above the head to connect them.

        There is a house to the left of teh snowman.  The house is a triangle on top of a square.  The outline is brown.  The house is the height of the first ball.  There is a red door with a doorknob in the middles, and there are two blue windows with a cross in between.  The triangle is shaded in with dark brown.  The square is light brown.

        There is a purple circle to the right of the snowman as a moon.  There is a purple line as the ground under the snowman.

Audrey is a pro at this game, but Sheryl (5th grade) had never played before.  Sheryl did a fabulous job reading Audrey's careful details; look at this match!

Congratulations to our winners!

Snowman Draw Game!

     The Snowman Draw game is a super fun, on-demand writing activity that teaches how important it is to use adjectives in one's writing!  Adjectives tell:

-size

-shape

-color

-number!

     And if you forget just one type of adjective, your partner won't be able to draw your snowman!

     Here is how you play:

Step #1: Draw a snowman.  Make sure to include a background, and be creative!

Step #2: Write a vivid and thorough description of your snowman using adjectives in every sentence! Make sure to write a paragraph for each feature so your reader's eyes are easily guided.

Step #3: Trade descriptions, and attempt to draw each other's snowman without any help or talking!

     Winners were selected by the class and given Blog Honors.  Congratulations to our winners!

My Snowman, by Tyler (4th grade)

     My snowman is formed upside down.  He is unusual in many ways.  First, at the top, is the big ball, then the medium, and then the small.

     My snowman's head is really big.  He has two black coal dots for eyes.  He has a pickle nose in the middle of his head.  It's small and oval shaped with two dark green vertical lines, and the rest is shaded green.  His mouth has nine coal dots, and are formed in a smile.  Also, he has a red top hat on his head.

     His medium ball has two black coal dots on it.  His arms come out from the side of his medium ball, and are on the middle of his ball, and his arms are brown.

     His little ball has one black coal dot on it.  Also his body is outlined in black.

     He is on a hill that's green and is outlined in green and is halfway up the paper.  The sun is yellow and is in your right hand corner with ten rays.

     The sky is blue and is only about half an inch down the top of the paper.  It should end up close to the sun.

     Can you draw my snowman?

     Tyler wrote so clearly that his partner, Kalea (4th grade), was able to draw this!  (Love the Pickle Noses, you two!!)

My Snow Creature, by Josephine (6th grade0

     My snow-creature is a pig.   It sits on a hill that is about 1/4 of the way up the page.  The hill is a bit round.

     My snow pig is formed by two snowballs.  The top snowball is small and white.  The pig has two pink triangles for ears.  It also has two tiny round coal gray eyes.  On the bottom, there is a pink, oval snout with two pencil oval nostrils.  Underneath the snout, there is a small pencil smile.

     The bottom snowball is medium, twice as big as the top snowball.  There is a scarf that is dark and light blue.  There are four dark blue stripes, and four light blue stripes.  They alternate dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark, light.  The two ends are on YOUR right of the scarf.  The end on YOUR left is light blue, the end on YOUR right is dark blue.  On YOUR bottom right of the snowball, there is a curly pig tail that loops once.

     On YOUR right, there is a green pine tree that looks like three triangles stacked on top of each other.  On the top of the tree, there is a tiny yellow star.  The tree has a brown stump.  On YOUR left from the tree, there is a small present a little bit below the tree.  It has red ribbons wrapping it and has green wrapping paper.  There is also a campfire on the bottom left corner.  It is medium-sized.  The fire has gray rocks around it.  The red and orange fire has two logs under it that criss-cross each other.  On YOUR right from the fire, there is a black s'more stick with two tiny white s'mores on the end with a little bit of space between them.  The stick is diagonal; it goes from the top left to the bottom right.

  

     In the sky, there are two clouds, one on YOUR left, and one on YOUR right.  The one on YOUR right has a yellow sun on YOUR left from the cloud.  The sun is medium with eight long triangular rays around it.  The clouds are snowing 25 snowballs snowing from them.  The sky is blue.

      Josephine got partnered with her sister, Kelly Anne (4th grade)!  They used their sister powers to read and write so carefully!  Look at these twins!

My Snowman, by Theo (3rd grade)

     My snowman looks like a normal snowman.  The bottom is big.  The middle is medium.  The head is small.  The whole body is yellow.  He sits on a large blue hill that goes halfway up the paper.  The head has one black, small top hat.  It has an orange bird on the left of his hat.  He has evil, red eyes staring in the middle.  His mouth is jagged and white.

     His middle has three black buttons on it.  There are three brown stick arms on each side of the body.  They each have three brown stick fingers.

     The bottom ball is big and yellow.

     There is a large green pine tree on his left.  There is a tiny green bush on his left.  There is also a gray jagged rock on the snowman's right.  The sky is blue.

I love how Theo wrote everything in such clear paragraphs to guide his reader!  This is a first-time ever feat: two 3rd graders won Snowman Draw!  Here is how James (3rd grade) drew Theo's twin snowman:

My Snowman, by Alyssa (5th grade)

     My snowman is a bear, and its head mostly takes up the whole bottom space.  It wears a carrot hat, laying on snow and there is a crescent moon in the background.

     Start off making your paper hot dog style.  Then draw a circle one inch above the bottom of the paper.  Then draw a watermelon shaped hat upside down on top of the head.  In the middle of the hat, draw a carrot with a green stem.  Then draw stripes meeting in the middle.  Draw six lines.  Do a pattern of green, white, green, in the stripes you made.  At the top of your hat, make three little skinny flower petals, then color it green.  In the middle of the ears there is red.  Its eyes: the right one is winking, while the left one is a circle, and inside the circle is another small circle.  North east and south west is a kinda thick blue line in the eye, which s turquoise.  The rest of the eye is black.  Its nose is a small hot cocoa.  The cocoa is brown and the cup is red with a handle on the left (which is also red.)  Under the hot cocoa, draw a little line.  The head is light blue, but make sure it is super light.

     The feet are round circles connecting to the head.  Two paws are in front and to little tiny paws in the back.  It's the same color as the head: light blue.

     The torso connects the two paws, not in front, but from back to front.  It's the same color as the head and paws.

     The snowman is sitting on snow.  The snow is white and is only 3 1/2 inches from the bottom.  It's just a black line, and inside is white.  In the right corner is a light yellow crescent moon.  Its points are facing right.  The background is just a blue shade.  It is dark blue, colored lightly.

Alyssa and Saviana (5th grade) are pro's at this game!  They have played this game for three years, and clearly are great writers and readers!

The Snowman Draw Game!

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!

Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives!  They can tell size, shape, color, number, and personality.  I encouraged the students to write every sentence with these concepts in mind.

Winners of the game would win candy and blog honors, so here they are!

This first drawing and writing piece was done by Ashley (3rd grade).  She uses so many "color" adjectives that her partner Sophia (3rd grade) draws a great match!

     My snowman has three body parts.  One is small, one is medium, and one is big.

     My snowman has a top hat with yellow with a pink belt on it.  He has pink glasses and a short carrot nose.  He has two coal eyes and five pieces of coal for a mouth.

     He wears a magenta vest with magenta round buttons.  He has a black belt and black boots. 

     The background has a Christmas tree with six blue balls and black tinsel.  There are ten snowballs and a house with five windows with yellow in them.  The house is blue with an orange roof and has a chimney with smoke coming out.

 

This next picture and description was done by Brandon (4th grade).  Brandon did an amazing job with his adjectives-- so great that his partner Henry (5th grade) drew a practical twin!

     My snowman is evil and cunning.  It has a medium head, a white big body, and a really big bottom.  It has red fiery arms the shape of a straight branch.  They have a dull ending with no fingers.  It has a trident with blood red tips and a  white shaft.  It holds nothing in its other hand, and has the same color and size as the other hand.

     It has bright orange wings extending from the middle of its body.  The wings are large with a sharp wavy shape and a crescent bottom.

     I forgot to tell you that the head has two red small devil horns and two round medium eyes with red fire blazing in them.  It has a red and orange pointy short nose.  It also has a bright orange tail extending from its bottom.  It has a red arrow shape at the end.

     It has two fluffy clouds with yellow lightning extending from them.

Emma (5th grade) focused on a detailed background, but described it so vividly that her partner Sophie (5th grade) got every detail right (except the sun.... but it was still really good!)  Size difference didn't matter as much as accuracy with other details.  Emma organized her paper very clearly!

My Background
     In the middle of the picture is a mountain.  The mountain is light brown except for its wavy snow cap.  Behind the mountain are two others; both take up half the page.  The mountains are the same as the first.  Also, all of them are outlined in black.  There are seventeen snowflakes falling that are blue.  The sun is yellow but it's a half sun.  It's on the snowman's left.

My Snowman
     My snowman is right on top of the middle mountain.  The snowman is small.  The bottom ball is large, the middle is medium, and right on the top is a small ball.  All three of the snowballs are light blue.

Snowman's Details
     On top of the small snowman's ball are three tiny hairs that are brown.  My snowman has black sunglasses with an orange carrot nose, regular shaped.  Also between the middle and small ball is a purple bow tie.  In the middle are three black dots that are horizontal.

Go from beginning to end or you will fail!

 

Savannah (5th grade) came up with a very clever design and described it very accurately.  This is Savannah's fifth Writers' Workshop, so she has really mastered how to get her partner to draw her snowman's twin!  Notice how she includes measurements to get Abby (4th grade) to draw her masterpiece.

     My Snowbot is in the shape of a robot.  His head is exactly six centimeters long and four centimeters high.  His head is gray and he has a simple smile just off center.  He has two eyes that are right next to each other, touching.  Each eye is one centimeter long.  His eyes are square.  Inside the eyes, there is one triangle per eye and the triangles have a flat top, not a point.  His eyes are just off center, in line with his mouth.  His eyes are off center to the left (same as the mouth.)  In his eyes, there are two vertical lines.

     The snowbot's neck is 1/2 centimeter long.  He is sporting a v-neck tee-shirt that is an orchid color.  The sleeve of his shirt is three centimeters long.  He is wearing mini shorts that are one centimeter long, and his shorts are salmon colored.  His legs are two centimeters long and are gray.  His shoes are 1/2 centimeter long and 1/2 centimeter tall.  His hands are 3 1/2 centimeters long and 1/2 centimeter tall.  They are gray.  His shoes are orchid colored.

Adjectives, Adjectives, Adjectives!

Session II of Writers' Workshop has started off beautifully, and I've had a wonderful time getting to know my students.  There are some enthusiastic returners, and excited new faces too!  They are super authors and artists, as this post will prove.

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)

     My snowgirl is quite pretty.  She has a black top hat with a brown strap with a small purple bow.  She has two coal black eyes and a tiny carrot nose.  For a mouth, she has four small coal pieces.


     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!

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!)