Week 3 - Shades of Meaning and Writing Poems

This week, the group explored adjectives in more detail by thinking about how words with similar meanings have different shades of meaning. In other words, we examined how words can have different "intensities." Students created their own 'thermometers' to demonstrate the different shades of meaning. 

An example from  Tommy Daly is shown below:
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To conclude the first part of this unit, the students wrote a poem about the life cycle of a plant using "The Caterpillar" poem as inspiration. They were encouraged to use adjectives and adverbs to make their poems come alive. 

Calla Friedman's poem is below:

Small seeds
scattered around on the 
soft soil ground,
seeds that are under the
dirt mound.

I felt four little roots
under my rain boots
as I walked
around the wet ground.

Stems shoot up
all around from 
plants below just as I 
walk by to say hello.