Once your students can write a complete sentence independently, it is time to start expanding those sentences to add more details. Instead of “The dog can run.” you want your students to start writing sentences like, “The brown dog can run fast.” or even multiple sentences like “My brown dog is named Jack. He likes to run after cats in the park.” But, how do you get from simple sentences to more descriptive? Today, I am going to share a few ways to help your students add details to their sentence writing to help them write more descriptive sentences in Kindergarten.
Adding adjectives to describe a noun
The simplest way to add more details to sentence writing is to add adjectives to describe a noun in the sentence. At this time in the school year, you have probably covered nouns, verbs, and adjectives. One way I like to model this is to write a sentence about a specific noun. I usually start with an animal, as they are able to tell me a lot about that animal.
Let's say we want to write about a butterfly. First, I have them close their eyes and picture a butterfly in their head. I have them tell me exactly what the butterfly looks like. I start writing these adjectives down- small, purple, bright, beautiful, etc. Now, I have them choose 2 of those words to add to their sentence about the butterfly. “The beautiful, purple butterfly can ____.” and have them fill in the rest. This can work with any type of noun.
Who, What, Where, When, Why
Sometimes students get stuck when they are writing simple sentences. “I see a duck.” now becomes their go-to sentence, “I see a man. I see a book.”, etc. I know every year I have a student who will do the bare minimum when it comes to writing sentences. One way to get your students past this dilemma is to ask questions to help expand their writing. I like to use the WH questions- Who, What, Where, When, and Why. With the “I see a duck.” example, you can ask “Where do you see a duck?” “In the pond.” and then the sentence becomes “I see a duck in the pond.” Continue asking questions and modeling exactly how to expand sentences to help add more details to their writing.
Writing 2 sentences instead of 1
Once students are able to write 1 sentence independently, they can start writing an additional sentence about the same topic. By adding a second sentence, your students will be automatically giving you more details about their writing. For example, if they are writing about their favorite animal, they might tell you more about that animal. “My favorite animal is a tiger. Tigers live in the jungle. They can run very fast.” Even though that is three simpler sentences, it gives you more details about that topic. You can continue to build on this by adding another sentence, eventually having them write 4 sentences about one specific topic.
Drawing a picture to add details
Another idea is to first draw a picture and then write a sentence. You can give your students a topic or idea and have them draw a picture of it. For example, maybe you want them to write about their birthday party. Have them draw a picture of their birthday party first. Then, going back to the second point of “Who, What, Where, When, Why”, you will ask questions to grab those additional details to use during writing. While they are describing their picture to you, they are using more complex sentences without even realizing it. You can help them formulate their thoughts onto paper by repeating or rephrasing some of what they said.
Here are some resources to help your students write more descriptive sentences in Kindergarten
Picture Prompts
One of my favorite ways to help students write more descriptive sentences is by using Picture Prompts. Students will pick a picture to write about and then draw a picture to match. These seasonal resources have a wide range of seasonal vocabulary to start with, which makes it easy to add 2 or more vocabulary words to write a more descriptive sentence.
My Favorite Season Writing Craftivity
Another resource that you can use is this writing craftivity. Students will pick their favorite season and write about why it is their favorite season. This is one way to ask more questions to help your students write more descriptive sentences.
Which will you try first?