Quintessentially Quilly

The sentence was: “The nice girl with long hair had a nice dress.” I put it on the white board and told the kids it was boring. I told them that “nice” is dead. They needed to remove “nice” and replace it with some “pop.” I said, “This sentence needs color, give me something I can “see”!” Hands shot into the air.

“Beautiful girl!”
“Green hair!”
“Curly hair!”
“Sparkling dress!”
“Pink Dress!”
“Black leather jacket, and don’t forget the chains!”
“High heels!”
“Blue shoes.”
“No, cowboy boots!”

I wrote everything on the board as they shared it, then I said, “Okay, let’s make an interesting sentence using words that will build a picture in our minds.”

Then I took ALL of their suggestions and wrote: “The beautiful girl with the long, curly, green hair wore a sparkling pink dress, a black leather coat with dangling chains, and blue high-heeled cowboy boots.” Then I said to the kids, “Now that is a much more interesting sentence. Can you “see” her now? The kids chorused, YES!”

We contemplated the board in silence for a few seconds then one of the girls said, “Somebody better take her to the mall and help her with her fashions!” One of the boys said, “Yeah, Mr. Pointbriand needs to teach her about crashing colors!”