Adjectives

The word of the day is adjectives!  Or, I should say, the words of the day were adjectives.  Adjectives everywhere!   We did a great (not a 5th grade word!) activity today to help the students think of creative and clever adjectives to add more appeal to their writing.

Each table had a large sheet of paper in the middle and the students were asked to discuss with one another and write down as many adjectives as they could find.  The only rule being no duplicates on the paper, and school appropriate, of course.  They had energized discussions about what words were adjectives and every group filled their papers.  One of the very last groups discovered a list of adjectives hanging on the wall in the classroom and thought they had scored big!

Once the papers were full, students were told to quietly (no discussion) circle their favorite adjective on the paper and put a star next to a word they questioned being an adjective.  They then had the opportunity to quietly rotate around the room, reading the words on each sheet of paper, circling their favorite and staring questionable words.

An abundance of adjectives!

It was fascinating to see what they came up with and what they questioned.  It was a peek into their minds and an opportunity to gauge their current vocabulary level.  I also thought it was a bit telling of their personalities, as many kids put "awesome," "great," etc. but several others put "fat," "slow," "dumb," etc.  I know you can't read too much into it, but I think the words that come to mind first can be a reflection of words often in your head.  

Once everyone returned to their seats we had a discussion about what were the favorite adjectives, did everyone agree that they were adjectives, and what were some of the questioned words.  Many, many students put stars next to the color words.  We discussed that some words, like "orange" and "lavender" can be adjectives or nouns, depending on the context.  Some words, like "chocolately" caused great debate and the students defended their sides (adjective/not adjective) with gusto!  We also came across words that were slang and had to consider where they fit into the writing lesson.  Hint: they did not! 

My favorite?  "Swagalishious!"  Said with enthusiasm and defended with passion.   Not a real word, of course, adjective or otherwise, but maybe it should be!