Similes

Objectives

To explore simple figurative language, including similes, to describe.

Resources

Today's Lesson

Spelling

Review spelling words to prepare for your test at the end of the week. Choose one of the Printables at the bottom of Spelling Frame to practise this week's words.

Main Activity

After yesterday’s lesson, your student should be able to say a few similes. Give them some time to learn, e.g. five similes off by heart, and to explain their meaning.

Ask your student to read the following poem to themselves at first, then out loud to you:

She lives with branches like arms

Wide and long they grow

She sings her song of the wind

Leaves rustling like nails clicking

Little flakes of bark peeling just like the skins of desert rocks

She feels wrinkly like a rhino’s skin

She smells like flowers

And in the dead of night she waits…

Discuss what your student thinks is being described in the poem. (A tree). What clues are there that it is a tree? Ask: Can you find and underline the similes? Do you like the similes that are used? Why or why not? Which similes use ‘as’ and which use ‘like’? (All of these similes use ‘like’!)

Now, look at the next poem:

A small pink nose as soft as a rose

A pair of beady eyes as black as the night

Two tiny ears as smooth as a feather

A long brown tail as twisty as a willow tree branch

An oval little body the size of an egg

Fine little whiskers as shiny as a star

Small scuttling feet as fast as lightning

Ask: What is being described here? How do you know? What are the clues? Can you find and underline the similes? Which use ‘as’ and which use ‘like’? (All these similes use ‘as’!) It is a mouse / small rodent that is being described.

Access the Creating similes resource and ask your student to complete the task.

Citations

[1] spellingframe.co.uk