Smartboard Activities for Personification

• Nature-related words such as sun and water can be described using human characteristics. Buena Vista Images/Photodisc/Getty Images

  According to the University of Tennessee, personification is "giving human qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics" to non-living objects. For example, "The car coughed and sputtered in the cold winter air," is an example of personification, as the car is described using the human actions of coughing and sputtering. A SmartBoard is a benefical tool to use while teaching personification and can result in a unique, interactive learning experience.

Cloze Passage

• Prepare a cloze exercise that students will complete during learning centers using the SmartBoard. Write five sentences, leaving a space where the student will add text that personifies the object. For example, write "The tropical storm ___________ for two days." Next, create a word box at the bottom of the screen. In the box, type verbs such as "groaned," "slept" and "cried." When typing the words, be sure to create each one in a separate text box so that it can be moved individually. During learning centers, have pairs of students read the sentences and drag words from the word box into the appropriate space so that each sentence makes sense. For example, a student could drag the word "slept" to personify the tropical storm: "The tropical storm slept for two days."

Integrate Poetry

• Copy and paste a poem that uses personification into a SmartBoard slide. Scholastic.com recommends using the poem "Sky" by Grace Nichols, a poem in which the sky is personified. Display the poem on the Smartboard, but create an opaque box to cover up the title and the ending. Read the poem and have students guess what object is being described. Circle the words that show personification. After revealing the title and end of the poem, have students choose an element of nature such as the moon or stars, and write a similar poem. Just as "Sky" ends by saying "I am Sky," have each student end her poem with "I am" and the name of the object.

Matching Lists

• On a SmartBoard slide, create two vertical lists. List A should include nouns such as "door," "sun" and "CD player." List B should include verbs such as "squeaks," "dances" and "tells." Have pairs of students use the SmartBoard pen and match nouns from List A with verbs from List B that personify the nouns.