Five Senses Poetry



Students write a five senses poem to share information about a favorite place or topic they are exploring.



Engage



Kick off your five senses unit with a story like Rachel Isadora’s, I Hear a Pickle. Follow with a play-based center that allows for individual and small-group experimentation and exploration using all five senses:




• See - objects with different colors and shapes, like marbles, interlocking bricks, or solid and patterned paper.

• Hear - objects that make noise, such as tambourines, maracas, and jingle bells.

• Smell - objects with embedded scents, such as scratch and sniff stickers, lavender, rosemary sprigs, or perfume sticks.

• Touch - objects with different textures, like velvet, sandpaper, and feathers.

• Taste - objects that taste sweet, sour, and salty and are safe to eat, like lemon rings, pickles, crackers, and grapes.




Then, go on a “sense” walk with your students. Model how to describe your observations using all five senses. Ask your students to describe what they see, hear, smell, touch, and taste.



Students can capture their observations using the Five Senses Observation template.



Five Senses Observation Template



Create



Start by having students write a five senses poem about the things they noticed on the senses walk. Young writers can use the text or dictation tool to write the name of the object they identify using each of their senses.



Five Senses Poem Template



Build on student writing by encouraging your emerging writers to use descriptive colors and sight words they may already know.



You can also use five senses poems for a creative approach to sharing information and retelling facts and details from texts students have read or that you have explored together, as well as use a five senses poem to practice empathy and voice by having students take on the perspective of the person or animal they are writing about.



Have students use the microphone to read their poem, adding intonation and inflection to further show off the character (narrator) of the poem.



Share



Print each student’s poem to display in your classroom. If students have recorded themselves reading their poems, showcase them for the entire class or during a parent celebration.



If students have written a five senses poem to describe a place they visited together on a field trip, have each student present their work to the class so that students can benefit from a myriad of different memories of the same event and see and hear how students used many different words to describe it.



If students used five senses poems to describe the information they learned about different animals, plants, or people, combine their work to publish a class book.



Assessment



As your students learn about their five senses through books, videos, and nature walks, you can begin to evaluate their understanding as they talk and write about the things they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.



Retelling by sharing information in a five senses model requires students to think more deeply and exercise creativity, not just copy and paste. If you are writing poems about topics you are studying, you will be able to evaluate how well students can take information they learned and retell it without simply repeating facts and information verbatim.



Resources



Rachel Isadora. I Hear a Pickle (and Smell, See, Touch, and Taste It, Too!). ISBN: 1338141546



Aliki. My Five Senses.. ISBN: 006238192X



Learn Bright - Five Senses for Kids - YouTube video



Generation Genius - The Five Senses



Standards



Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2
Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4
Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.5
Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.6
Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2
Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.4
Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.



CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.5
Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.