This is a worksheet for primary school students. You can use this page or you can download the worksheet (but not the pictures) here.

Look, listen, smell and touch (if safe/allowed)

what you’re trying to describe.

What are the most noticeable things

about the plant, animal

or place you’re describing?

What are the most important things?

Look at the photographs of this tree (or go out into the playground or backyard and look at a tree or bush).

Consider:

• size
• colour
• shape
• sound
• smell
• movement
• texture
• relationship to what’s around it
• how it changes (eg over a day, over a year).

Put together a word bank about whatever you’re describing.

Pick the words that feel the most true about it.

Write some sentences using those words.

Then choose some other words, and write some sentences using those words.

Which feels truer? Which will give the reader the best understanding of what you’re describing? Which will give the reader the best feeling about it?

Can you combine or change or shift your words so that the reader will feel more or understand more?

Do it!

Have some fun with words!

And then, illustrate that description.