Olympic Writing

What to Do:

1. Have your child choose an Olympic event or sport to write about—possibly her favorite sport.
2. Define an adjective for your child to make sure she's familiar with the concept. An adjective's main role is to modify or describe a noun or pronoun. You may need to clarify what a noun is (person, place, thing, or idea) before explaining what an adjective is.
3. Ask your child to identify nouns and pronouns in a paragraph from a book or the Internet. Next, help her identify the adjectives.
4. Help your child divide a piece of paper into two columns, lengthwise, either by folding it or simply drawing a line through the middle. On the top of the first column, have your child write "Sport." Have her write "Adjectives" on top of the second column.
5. Have your child make a bulleted list of words or phrases that characterize her favorite Olympic event under the first column, include the athletes and equipment. For example, if she chose hockey she may write: puck, net, teams, goalie, ice skates, etc.
6. Encourage your child to think of and write adjectives in the second column across from the corresponding words in the "Sport" column. For example, in the column next to the word puck, your child may write: small, round, hard, gray, etc. Encourage your child to not repeat adjectives; for example, instead of using "cold" to describe both the ground and the puck, use "freezing" or "frigid" for one of them. Remind your child that she can use a thesaurus for some extra assistance.
7.  Ask your child to make compile her list of words and adjectives into a paragraph describing a chosen Winter Olympic event. She should begin the paragraph with a topic sentence that gives the reader an introduction into the subject matter. For example, "Hockey is a Winter Olympic event that is made up of opposing teams and useful equipment." Have your child close her eyes to see if she can picture the Olympic sport as you read the paragraph she wrote aloud.
8. For extra practice, have your child circle all of the different parts of speech that she previously learned about, using different colors.