Shape Sentence Jungles

Shape Sentence Jungles

Creating simple descriptive sentences using a  noun, a verb and an adjective to create a jungle animal.

This evening at JLN training,my colleagues and I were discussing writing simple sentences with Year 4  children  next half term , when we teach the children about jungle animals . It’s one of our favourite units in the JLN  SOW and we are always looking for ways to enhance what we do.

The children have learned about nouns and adjectives as components  of a simple sentence.We have practised colours and sizes but have not as yet practised the position of adjectives and agreement of adjectives in target languages

We want to be creative with the simple sentence structure and language.This year we are going to try writing shape sentences both as physical sentences and also as written descriptions of our jungle animals .

Physical sentences

Hand out to three children in the class, three cards – a noun , a verb and an adjective that describe one of the jungle animals- for example the giraffe 

Stand the three children in a row holding up their cards so that they are visible to the rest of the class. Make sure the children are in a random order – so stand the child with the adjective at the start of the line, the child with the noun in the middle and the child with the verb at the end of the row.

Can a volunteer reorganise the cards into a sentence for you so that it makes sense by moving the children into the correct position? 

Now can a second volunteer create a shape sentence . For example if it’s a giraffe we are describing then can we create a long tall shape with the noun at the top , the verb in the middle and the adjective at the bottom

If it’s a snake  …….

then we need to create a wiggly word sentence like this.....

If it’s an elephant then maybe our word shape will have a noun for the trunk , a verb for the body and an adjective for the tail .

Shape Sentence Jungle.

Can the children put their jungle animals into their jungle setting? This activity leads on well from the above activity . The children need to draw a picture of their jungle backdrop and then write shape sentences for each of the animals in their jungle . They can select four animals. They can use more than one adjective to describe an animal and they need to create their shape sentences so that they flow as a written sentence  , therefore noun , verb and adjective/ adjectives and look like the shape of the animal .

Can other children in the class find and identify the jungle shape sentences. 

Use wonderful art work such as Rousseau's pictures of jungle animals to inspire the children to create shape sentence jungle art and camouflage this in their jungle pictures  !