What are three interesting adjectives for this koala bear?
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Ideas for Teachers from Teachers How do you teach young writers to use adjectives well?
Example Blurb: I love bringing out Brian Cleary's picture book Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? I use it when teaching students to not always choose the first descriptive word (adjective) that pops into their heads. A really fun activity for young writers is to put them in groups of three or four, and have them create rhyming sets of three adjectives (like the title of this mentor text--hairy, scary, ordinary). You will need to walk around and help students be sure to ONLY choose adjectives for their set of words, which is a challenge when they have to rhyme. You'll want to model the process too; I use the words slinky, stinky, and inky for my modeling, and I make sure the students understand that pinky is a noun, which is not why it's on my list, though pink is an adjective. When all the groups have (at least) one set of words, they can illustrate a poster that has all three words printed on it. These can hang around the room.
When working with young writers, I like to discuss the magic of adjectives and talk about how these words help create pictures in the reader's mind. To demonstrate this, I place an object in a small paper bag and distribute one bag to each pair of students. Their job is to list adjectives on the outside of the bag that will help us get a picture in our minds of what's inside. When we regroup the kids love guessing what's inside based on the adjective clues their friends have written.
A fun way I teach my Kindergarteners that number and color words are describing words called adjectives is by having them draw and decorate colorful spring kites. I ask my students to draw and color up to three kites using two different colors and one design element such as stripes, dots, hearts, swirls, etc. for each kite. Then I have them practice writing sentences to describe their kites using number words, color words, and descriptive words, such as striped, dotted, etc. The children share their sentences, and volunteers identify the correct kites and the describing words.
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When working with young writers, I like to discuss the magic of adjectives and talk about how these words help create pictures in the reader's mind. To demonstrate this, I place an object in a small paper bag and distribute one bag to each pair of students. Their job is to list adjectives on the outside of the bag that will help us get a picture in our minds of what's inside. When we regroup the kids love guessing what's inside based on the adjective clues their friends have written. 
