Building a Plant Profile

Teacher note: The following activity is to help students discover descriptive

ways to write about plants. It is probably too long of an activity to do in one
day- I would recommend that the observation portion in #1 happen the day
preceding the classroom thesaurus activity of #2. Activity #3 could possibly
be begun on the second day, but could easily wait until a creative writing
class later that week.

Activity #1: Find a flowering plant to observe. In a notebook, write down

your observations of the plant in the following areas. Each area is going to
ask you for three descriptive words for that aspect of the plant.

Leaves
List 3 colors to describe the leaves
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the leaves’ shape
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the leaves’ textures
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words that describe the leaves’ smell
1.
2.
3.

Stem
List 3 words to describe the stem
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the stems’ shape
1.
2.
3.

List 3 words to describe the stems’ textures

1.
2.
3.

Flowers
List 3 colors to describe the flowers
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the flowers’ shape
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the flowers’ texture
1.
2.
3.
List 3 words to describe the flowers’ smell

Activity #2- To help you write a more interesting descriptive paragraph or

poem about your plant, take each of the words you used above and search
for more descriptive/interesting alternatives to those words. A good place
to start is the Thesaurus- it has many synonyms for commonly used words.
Beside each word, write at least one alternative word that could help you in
Activity #3

Activity#3- Using the “word bank” that you have created above, write a
descriptive paragraph or poem about your plant. Make it so vivid and exciting
that the reader will be able to create a picture of the plant within her mind.

Copyright 2012 by Janet Langley