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Teacher notes · not for pupils Vocabulary sequence

Use Your Senses

Descriptive writing using the five senses

Lesson 2 of 10
Year 3 45 min

Objective

Describe a setting using more than one sense, choosing words that name what a body can actually see, hear, smell, taste or touch rather than opinions about it.

Board title: Describing with the senses  ·  Say it: “By the end of today you'll be able to describe a place using more than your eyes — what you hear, smell, taste and feel as well.”

Curriculum

  • Y3/4: composition — describing settings to convey atmosphere
  • Y3/4: discussing and recording ideas for writing
  • Y2: expanded noun phrases for description (built on)
  • Terminology: senses · description · setting · adjective

Success criteria

  • name what I can see in a place
  • add a sound and a smell
  • use a taste or a touch word too
  • read it back and hear the place

Key vocabulary

senses · sight · sound · smell · taste · touch · describe · setting

Run of the lesson

4 min
Starter on the board: The kitchen was busy. against Pans clattered and the air smelled of garlic. Which one puts you inside the room? One minute of paired talk, then take three answers.
8 min
Model Example 1 and 2. Build the café out loud one sense at a time — sight first, then insist on a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch. Write each on the board under its sense.
6 min
The trap: I could see that it was lovely. Ask which part of me notices lovely? Nothing does. Swap it for steam curling off the cups together.
6 min
Flavour Match on the whiteboard, Medium band. Class votes blue or green first; name the sense each keyword belongs to before you tap.
18 min
Worksheet, independent. Circulate on Task 3 — most children will write three sight sentences without noticing. Make them label each sentence with its sense before they write.
3 min
Plenary: Polpetta's three-sight bakery review, then the class quiz for SENSE on the board.
On screenSPAGhetti → Flavour Match → Medium. One screen only; no pupil devices needed. Ask which sense each keyword belongs to as the class votes — the game does not ask this, you do, and it is where the thinking happens. ~10 items in 6 minutes with discussion.
SPAGhetti · Vocabulary sequence · Lesson 2 of 10  ·  Teacher notes 1 of 2
Teacher notes · not for pupils Use Your Senses · side 2

On the day

If the tech failsSkip the game entirely. Close your eyes as a class and describe the room you are actually in, one sense at a time, going round the tables. Sight first, then a sound, then a smell. The lesson works with no screen at all.
If they're on devicesLesson code SENSE (on the worksheet footer) opens the right game, locks the café until 10 items are done, then unlocks it as the reward. For writing, the Five senses planner in Cook Up a Story gives them tappable sentence starters for each sense.

Misconceptions to watch for

Opinions dressed up as senses. It looked lovely. It felt amazing. The verb is a sense verb, so it sounds right, but nothing is actually being sensed. Ask: which part of your body noticed that? If the answer is none, it is an opinion.

Taste only counts if you eat something. You can taste the air — smoke, salt, rain. Worth saying out loud, because it doubles the taste sentences available to them.

Sight does all the work. Left alone, most children write five sight sentences. It is not laziness, it is what writing usually rewards. Make them label the sense before the sentence, and the balance fixes itself.

More senses always means better. Five sentences forced into one paragraph reads like a list. Two or three senses, chosen well, beat all five crammed in. Say this at the end, not the start.

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 sense words first and let them build the sentence round one. The Five senses planner in Cook Up a Story does exactly this on screen.
  • Stretch: Task 3 extension — write a place where one sense is missing on purpose (a silent kitchen, a room in the dark) and say what that does to the reader.
  • SEN: Gentle mode on. Do Task 3 orally with a scribe, one sense per turn. The five-icon planner is a visual prompt they can point at rather than recall.
  • EAL: Sense verbs are high-frequency and transfer well. Teach the five verbs with the five icons, then let them write in short sentences; the structure carries the description.

Play it

Lesson code SENSE 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 · Vocabulary sequence · Lesson 2 of 10  ·  Teacher notes, not for pupils 2 of 2  ·  Ludora