Supports Common Core Standards for English Language Arts:
- Grade 1: Writing: 3. Write narratives in which they include at least two or more appropriately sequenced events, use time cue words to signal event order, and provide some details and a sense of closure; 7. Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., exploring a number of books on a given topic)
Grade 2: Writing: 3. Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or series of events, use temporal words and phrases to signal event order, include details to tell what the narrator did, thought, and felt, and provide closure; 7. Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., exploring a number of books on a given topic)
Objective
By the end of these lessons, SWBAT:
- Identify and describe each of the five senses.
- Use their five senses to incorporate details into their novels.
Materials Needed
- One large piece of butcher paper or oversized, unlined Post-It Notes.
- Five colorful markers.
- One black marker.
- Your students' novels!
- A variety of different-feeling materials (sandpaper, silk, wool, clay, etc), drinks, and snacks for "Day Three: Touch."
Note: These lessons should be done in the beginning of November, after your students have started their novels. Though they all appear in this lesson plan, these are meant to be five mini-lessons that are done over the course of five days.
Day One: Smell
Total Lesson Time
40 Minutes
Step One: Sense of Smell
5 minutes
Ask your students: “What is your favorite smell? What does it remind you of?” Take a few answers from different students.
Step Two: Introduce Writing With All Your Senses
5 minutes
1. Say, “Authors add details to their writing to make their stories more interesting. Over the next week we are going to use our five senses to help us add details to our novels. Can you name the five senses?”
Answer: Smell, Taste, Touch, Sight, Hearing.
2. Then say, “Writing with all of your senses means keeping your eyes and ears and nose and mouth and fingers alert, ready to add more detail using your senses.” Ask a few students to share the good smells and bad smells they wrote about at the beginning of class. Point out that smell is often forgotten about when writing, but it is a really important sense. Smell is one of our strongest senses, and triggers memory more than any of the other senses.
Step Three: Practice as a Class
10 minutes
1. Write this sentence on the butcher paper: Gary is eating an ice cream sundae.
2. Ask the class “What does Gary's sundae smell like?”
3. Using a colorful marker, write the word “Smell” on the butcher paper and add a few of your students’ descriptions of Gary’s sundae underneath.
4. Using a black marker, write a few complete sentences that include many of the ideas from the brainstorm session.
Ideas: “Gary loves the sweet, delicious smell of hot fudge. It reminds him of trips to the beach when he was little. He and his friends used to get hot fudge sundaes and watch the waves roll in.”
Step Four: Practice on Their Own
20 minutes
Students can spend the rest of class time working on their novels. Remind them to add sensory details (particularly using their sense of smell) as they write!
Note: If you are writing a collaborative novel, be sure to add sensory details as you continue writing.
Day Two: Taste
Total Lesson Time
35 minutes
Step One: Sense of Taste
5 minutes
Ask your students: “What is your favorite taste? What does it remind you of?” Take a few answers from different students.
Step Two: Practice as a Class
10 minutes
1. Take out the butcher paper where you have written sensory details about Gary’s sundae.
2. Ask the class “What does Gary's sundae taste like?”
Example Ideas: Delicious, chocolate and strawberry, mouth-watering, etc. (There are no right or wrong answers. As long as students are thinking with their mouths, so to speak.)
3. Using a colorful marker, write the word “Taste” on the butcher paper and add a few of your students’ descriptions of Gary’s sundae underneath.
4. Using a black marker, write a few more sentences that include many of the ideas from the brainstorm session. For example: “Gary is eating an ice cream sundae. It’s made with sweet, creamy chocolate and strawberry ice cream.”
Step Four: Practice on their Own
20 minutes
Students can spend the rest of class time working on their novels. Remind them to add sensory details (particularly using their sense of taste) as they write!
Day Three: Touch
Total Lesson Time
35 minutes
Step One: Sense of Touch
5 minutes
1. Write a list of feeling-based descriptive words on the board like hot, cold, soft, rough, smooth, mushy, etc. Go through the list and ask your students what items in the world are cold, hot, soft, rough, smooth, mushy, etc. Explain that you can feel things with more than just your hands, for instance with your feet, and that you can feel hot and cold and mushy with your mouth too!
2. Bring in a variety of different materials (sandpaper, silk, wool, clay, etc). Pass the materials around to different students and have the students describe how each material feels. If possible, bring in a snack or a drink and have the students talk about how it feels in their mouths.
Step Two: Practice As a Class
10 minutes
1. Take out the butcher paper where you have written sensory details about Gary’s sundae.
2. Ask the class “What does Gary's sundae feel like?”
3. Using a colorful marker, write the word “Touch” on the butcher paper and add a few of your students’ descriptions of Gary’s sundae underneath.
4. Using a black marker, write a small paragraph that includes many of the ideas from the brainstorm session.
Ideas: “The sundae is so cold it freezes the top of Gary’s mouth and gives him a brain freeze.” Continue the paragraph on the board with students’ ideas.
Step Four: Practice on Their Own
20 minutes
Students can spend the rest of class time working on their novels. Remind them to add sensory details (particularly using their sense of touch) as they write!
Day Four: Sight
Total Lesson Time
35 minutes
Step One: Sense of Sight
5 minutes
Ask your students: “What is something you see in the classroom?” Ask students to point out things they see in the classroom and describe what color they are, the size and shape of the object, and anything else about the item that they would like to add.
Step Two: Practice as a Class
10 minutes
1. Take out the butcher paper where you have written sensory details about Gary’s sundae.
2. Ask the class “What does Gary's sundae look like?”
3. Using a colorful marker, write the word “Sight” on the butcher paper and add a few of your students’ descriptions of Gary’s sundae underneath. Remind them to describe the size, shape, and colors of the sundae.
4. Using a black marker, write a small paragraph that includes many of the ideas from the brainstorm session.
Ideas: “His sundae is as big as the table and covered with blue, purple, and yellow sprinkles. It looks like a hot fudge volcano!” etc. Continue the paragraph on the board.
Step Four: Practice on Their Own
20 minutes
Students can spend the rest of class time working on their novels. Remind them to add sensory details (particularly using their sense of sight) as they write!
Day Five: Hearing/Sound
Total Lesson Time
35 minutes
Step One: Sense of Hearing
5 minutes
Ask your students to close their eyes and listen to the sounds they hear (birds outside, cars passing by, students in other classrooms, etc). After a couple minutes, call on a few students to talk about the sounds they heard while their eyes were shut. Explain that there are always sounds, and that adding descriptions of sounds is another way to add interesting detail to novels.
Step Two: Practice as a Class
10 minutes
1. Take out the butcher paper where you have written sensory details about Gary’s sundae.
2. “Okay, now for the real challenge: hearing. There probably isn’t a sound to Gary’s sundae, but maybe there’s a sound in the room? What can you hear in your imagination that we could add to our description?”
3. Using a colorful marker, write the word “Hearing” on the butcher paper and add a few of your students’ descriptions of Gary’s sundae underneath.
4. Using a black marker, write a couple sentences including many of the ideas from the brainstorm session.
Ideas: “It's Gary's birthday party and he hears his friends laughing and talking all around him. He hears his dog whining to get some of his sundae, etc."
Step Four: Practice on Their Own
20 minutes
Students can spend the rest of class time working on their novels. Remind them to add sensory details (particularly using their sense of hearing) as they write!
