The showing hand activity teaches students the link between word choice and the five senses, as well as providing the students with a descriptive word bank for a reference when telling or writing a story. To begin the activity, instruct the students to trace an outline of their hand on a blank piece of paper, labeling each finger with a cartoon character of one of the five senses. Encourage the students to think of descriptive words for each sense, such as sweet, sour or salty for the sense of taste. Have the students write several descriptive words for each sense. Each student should keep the showing hand activity as a resource.
The word recognition activity teaches student how to recognize descriptive words while reading a story. Give each student a piece of paper containing several short stories, each just one or two paragraphs in length. Instruct the students to underline all of the showing, or descriptive, words in each story.
The story revision activity teaches students the importance of using descriptive words. To begin, write a short story, using dull, vague and non-descriptive words such as "the man walked down the street" or "the woman baked a dessert." Underline each word or phrase which, when changed, will make the story livelier. Read the story to the students and allow them to replace the underlined words with more descriptive words. Read the revised story, noting how the choice of words makes the story more interesting.
The scene creation activity is useful for teaching students how to create mental pictures with words. To begin, give each student a piece of paper with three to five scenes listed, such as a waterfall, a sailboat race, kittens playing and a playground. Instruct each student to list five phrases or words for each scene, such as splashing, sparkling, flowing, misty and tumbling for a waterfall.