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In preparation for hosting the Collegial Research Group on January 15th, Jenna and I met with Sue, Michelle and Yvonne via Zoom. We brainstormed ideas for a playful learning lesson in writing. At the time of our planning session, we were a few lessons into Bend 1 of Unit 2: Topic Books. For the upcoming writing lesson, students would be tasked with using sensory words to describe objects brought from home and we thought this would be a great lesson in which to incorporate playful learning. We came up with an exciting plan, which Jenna and I then prepared for.
Our job was to get students thinking about words that could describe the way something looks, feels, sounds and smells. However, we knew simply asking students to do this wouldn’t be enough. We knew they would benefit from diving more deeply into this skill in a playful learning setting before incorporating this strategy into their writing.
As part of the planning process Jenna and I decided we needed to engage in some of this play on our own first. We chose an object - a classroom chime - and together, we thought of words to describe the look, feel, sound and smell of that object. We discussed and refined our words, wrote them on post-its, and categorized them into groups “looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like.” Trying it out for ourselves helped us imagine challenges our students might face and helped us solidify what we wanted to highlight in our mini lesson - namely collaboration, communication, attention to detail, and specificity.
Then, we set out to choose one everyday classroom object for each group of students to describe. To make it more fun, we placed these objects into mystery bags. We wanted only the group members describing the object to be able to see and touch and smell the object. We thought it would increase engagement and also challenge students to be more specific with their words, since they would be tasked with getting their classmates to guess the object based on their describing words.
Mini-Lesson
Jenna and I introduced the concept of sensory describing words
We modeled brainstorming words that would accurately describe our mystery object. We modeled teamwork by asking each other questions and building off of each others' ideas. Once we agreed on a word, we wrote the word on a post-it note and added it to our poster.
Group Work
We then handed out mystery object bags to each group and students got to work describing their objects. We observed students enjoying the process of coming up with words and we witnessed moments of struggle, as well. As students described their objects, the use of metaphor emerged naturally. For example, one group wrote "looks like a crocodile’s mouth" to describe a stapler.
Whole-Group Guess the Object
Students thoroughly enjoyed coming up and leading the class in guessing their object. Each student had a chance to participate and share with the class by reading out the words they came up with as a group. The class loved guessing what the object might be. The class was not able to guess one mystery object given the words that groups came up with. It was a good teaching moment since students were able to see that being specific is important when teaching others about something. They refined their list and the class was able to guess - watercolors!
Independent Work
Students were now ready to describe their own objects which they had brought from home. We made a graphic organizer that was a mini version of the poster used during group work. Students worked hard to describe their objects using sensory words. A reminder was needed here - that to describe how something looks we need to think about color, size, and shape.
This is the graphic organizer we created, which looked just like the poster the students used in small groups.
Share
In our share, we let students know that they would be able to keep their sensory charts in their writing folders. We let them know that the hard work they did today would serve as a resource to make their writing even stronger in the coming days.
Post-lesson reflection
We continue to refer to our sensory charts during writing. We are encouraging students to pull them out and use words they came up with to teach their readers even more about their objects. This work has enhanced their writing. For example, spending time describing the size of objects has led us to teach some students about the power of comparison (i.e. “as big/small as”).
A student refered to his chart when writing his book about his object, a toy dinosaur. He wrote: "It has claws and their claws are sharp and it has sharp teeth. It is medium size and it is pointy also it is skaley. It sounds like a loud roar."
"It's shiny, woody. It's small."
"He looks brown, peach, brown, yellow, red, gold, light brown..."
"It looks like 3-D. It's purple. It's shiny and smooth. It's smaller than your hand."
"She is as fluffy as a bunny. And way more fluffy!"
Peer Comments:
I love how you tailored this activity to allow the students to dig deeper into their ability to describe things in a fun and engaging way. I would love to use something like this in my classroom to 1. help my students identify adjectives and 2. to use their 5 senses when describing things in science to get a better idea of how scientists collect data. -- Sarah
Dahlia, I loved how you had the kids use a secretive object in a bag to complete the descriptive organizer. It was so fun and added such a great twist to the lesson! The mystery element really kept the kids engaged and made the activity more interactive. Great job on making it so creative! - Kim O'Connor
This lesson was thoughtfully planned and effectively executed. The students’ engagement was evident through their smiles, focused attention, meaningful discussions, and eagerness to participate. One of the most memorable moments was when a group needed to discuss the true nature of the object in their bag. Rather than stepping in, you allowed them the opportunity to collaborate and problem-solve on their own. this was such a wonderful way to foster independence and critical thinking.- Maureen Windwer
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