Teacher notes for this lesson. Two sides of A4, not for pupils.Mild sheetMedium sheetSpicy sheetAnswers
Teacher notes · not for pupils Writer's craft sequence

The Oven Grumbled

Personification: giving things human actions

Lesson 5 of 12
Year 5 45 min

Objective

Use personification, giving an object or place a human action or feeling that suits the mood, and tell it apart from a plain fact and from a simile.

Board title: Personification  ·  Say it: “By the end of today you'll be able to use personification: giving a thing a human action or feeling, so a place comes to life.”

Curriculum

  • Y5/6: reading — how authors use figurative language, considering the impact on the reader
  • Y5/6: composition — describing settings and atmosphere
  • Y3/4: similes and metaphors (lessons SIMLD, METPE) (built on)
  • Terminology: personification · figurative · literal · atmosphere

Success criteria

  • spot personification in a sentence
  • give an object a human action
  • choose an action that suits the mood
  • tell it apart from a simile

Key vocabulary

personification · human · action · feeling · mood · atmosphere

Run of the lesson

4 min
Starter on the board: The oven was hot. against The oven grumbled. Which feels alive? One minute of paired talk, then take three answers.
8 min
Model Example 1 and 2. Actions first (grumbled, sang), then feelings (sleepy, lonely). Ask how each one changes the mood of the place.
6 min
The trap: The wind blew the leaves. Ask could the wind really do that? Yes, so it is a fact. Swap it for The wind whispered secrets. together.
6 min
Flavour Match on the whiteboard, Spicy band, Level 7 then Level 8. Class votes first; ask for the human action each time.
18 min
Worksheet, independent. Circulate on Task 3 and ask: does the action suit the mood you want?
3 min
Plenary: Polpetta's weather lines, then the class quiz for PERSE on the board.
On screenSPAGhetti → Flavour Match → Spicy. Play Level 7 (give it a human action) then Level 8 (personification, simile or neither?); both are open from the start. ~10 items in 6 minutes with discussion.
SPAGhetti · Writer's craft sequence · Lesson 5 of 12  ·  Teacher notes 1 of 2
Teacher notes · not for pupils The Oven Grumbled · side 2

On the day

If the tech failsSkip the game. Name an object in the room (the radiator, the door, the bin) and go round the tables: each gives it a human action, then the class votes on the one that best suits a spooky mood, then a happy one. The lesson works with no screen at all.
If they're on devicesLesson code PERSE (on the worksheet footer) opens Flavour Match on Spicy, with the two personification levels open. For writing, set Cook Up a Story and ask them to bring one object to life.

Misconceptions to watch for

Any action counts. The wind blew. The rain fell. These are things the wind and rain really do. Ask: could it really do that? Only a human action makes it personification.

Personification and simile get mixed up. The trees moved like dancers is a simile (like). The trees danced is personification. Check for like or as first.

There has to be a person in the sentence. Personification has no people in it at all: the thing itself behaves like a person. The house waited is enough.

The action does not suit the mood. The graveyard giggled in a spooky scene works against the writer. Choose the human action for the feeling you want the reader to have.

The three sheets

Same four tasks on every sheet, in the same order, with the same look. Only the demand changes. Print the one each child needs; nobody does two.

Mild

Same four tasks as every other sheet, same order, same look, the demand is lower, not the dignity. Shorter passage in Task 2, and in Task 3 a word bank or words to tick, with printed sentence starters. Give it to anyone who needs a way in, and expect them to move up.

Medium

The core sheet. Give this to most of the class. No word bank; in Task 3 pupils choose from a few close options, then use one in a sentence of their own.

Spicy

Same four tasks, more demand, a longer passage with a subtler error, and Task 3 asks for two things at once. Not extra work; harder work. Nobody should be doing Spicy and the Medium sheet.

Adaptive teaching

  • Support: Give the object and three verbs to choose from, one human and two not (the kettle: sang, boiled, was hot). Choosing comes before inventing.
  • Stretch: Write the same street twice, once friendly and once threatening, changing only the personification. Then explain what changed.
  • SEN: Gentle mode on. Act it out: a pupil becomes the kettle and sings, the door and groans. For pupils who take language literally, say plainly that the oven is not really grumbling; it is a picture.
  • EAL: Human verbs (smile, whisper, sleep) are high-frequency and transfer well. Build a bank of them with gestures, then attach them to objects.

Play it

Lesson code PERSE at playspaghetti.com. The code is printed on the bottom of every pupil sheet with a QR, and Class Quiz in your dashboard opens the plenary quiz for this lesson pre-picked.

SPAGhetti · Writer's craft sequence · Lesson 5 of 12  ·  Teacher notes, not for pupils 2 of 2  ·  Ludora