Year 5 get emotional

Excited? Angry? Curious? Nervous? Year 5 were all of these, and more, in English this week, as they considered how they could describe a character’s feelings and characteristics in an African traditional tale.

Much hilarity ensued as they acted out different emotions in pairs, trying to guess each other’s characteristics solely from their body language and the way in which they spoke. Zoe’s ‘embarrassment’ was properly toe-curling, Jack was really jumping with ‘excitement’, and Dylan tried really hard to be ‘angry’ (although as you can see from the picture, his good-natured smile kept breaking through).

Acting over, Year 5 put all they had learned into practice in their writing. They described the different ways in which their African animal characters might move, stand, gesture and speak to show their character. They tried to match emotions to appropriate animals. Rhinos, we thought, were grumpy; parrots were rather giddy and chatty.

Keep practising at home, Year 5. See if you can recognise and describe the ways in which emotions and characteristics are shown by the people around you. Does your dad stick out his chest with pride when he bakes a fantastic Victoria sponge? Do your mum’s eyes mist up when she is feeling nostalgic when looking at baby pictures of you? You can use all these ideas in your writing...