I love adjectives. They’re one of my favorite parts of language arts to teach. But you can’t spend forever on them (or on anything these days), so you’ve got to find an effective activity to teach adjectives without taking too much precious time (to prepare or do in class). Here’s one idea:

As a class, choose something to describe (cats are a good place to start). Discuss what cats look, smell, sound, taste and feel like. (Your kids will get a kick out of “what do cats taste like?”) Then choose a second thing to describe (we chose a hamburger). After discussing how adjectives describe something in a variety of ways, it’s time to let your students try one on their own.

This packet (Adjectives activity PDF) has a picture of something for kids to describe. Let them color in the picture so they can use color words in their description. Then students write down as many adjectives (look, taste, smell, sound, and feel) as they can about the picture. Then they use the blank lines to write sentences about the picture using the adjectives they brainstormed. I have my students circle the adjectives in the sentence. Sometimes I let a few students put their picture under the document camera and read one of their sentences to the class. There are multiple pages in the packet, so once you’ve done this activity as a whole group, you can use the rest as seat work activities to reinforce the concept.

Keep browsing my blog for more fun free worksheets and activities for elementary school kids! Thanks for stopping by!