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Hi Valerie, I agree this is a great way of using AI concepts to help build imagination and develop understanding of life in Ancient Egypt. I really like your idea of reflecting on the difference between human and machine thinking, perhaps a drama could be added to allow the children a further insight to the feelings of the people in Ancient Egypt to further allow the children to empathise with the AI’s created diary. Great ideas!
Lesson plan: Exploring Adjectives through Descriptive Writing
Class: 6th class
Primary Language Curriculum (English):
📌 Learning Outcome 5: Vocabulary – “The child will acquire and use a wide range of vocabulary across a variety of contexts.”
📌 Learning Outcome 6: Sentence Structure and Grammar – “The child will develop an understanding of grammar and sentence structure and apply it in their writing.”
📌 Learning Outcome 8: Creating Texts – “The child will create a range of texts using appropriate language, style, and structure.”Learning Objectives:
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Identify and use adjectives to enhance descriptive writing.
Create a vivid descriptive passage using sensory language and adjectives.
Use their passage to generate an AI image.
Complete a short quiz to assess their understanding of adjectives.Resources:
Whiteboard and markers
Sample descriptive passage
Adjective word bank (printed and projected)
Laptops/tablets (optional, for AI image generation)
Printed adjective quiz
Thesaurus🧩 Lesson Structure
1. Introduction
Begin with a quick discussion: “What makes writing interesting to read?”
Introduce adjectives as “describing words” that help paint a picture in the reader’s mind.
Show simple sentence: “The dog barked.” → Transform it: “The large, shaggy dog barked loudly at the nervous cat.”2. Guided Practice
Display a short descriptive paragraph and highlight the adjectives.
Discuss how each adjective adds detail and imagery.
Create a class adjective word bank (e.g., shimmering, icy, towering, musty, velvety).3. Independent Writing Task
Students write a descriptive paragraph (6–8 sentences) about a magical forest, mysterious island, or futuristic city using at least 10 adjectives.
Prompt: “Imagine you’ve just stepped into a world no one has ever seen before. Describe what you see, hear, smell, and feel.”
Encourage use of sensory language and vivid adjectives.
Encourage a wide variety of words and use thesaurus to aid more advanced language retrieval
✅ Example Student Passage:“The towering crystal trees shimmered in the golden sunlight, their translucent leaves rustling like whispers. A velvety mist floated above the mossy ground, glowing with a soft blue hue. Strange, fluttering creatures with iridescent wings zipped between the branches, leaving trails of sparkling dust. The air smelled of sweet nectar and ancient stone. In the distance, a colossal waterfall thundered into a glowing turquoise lake, sending up clouds of cool, fragrant spray.”
This passage can be used in an AI image generator to bring the scene to life.
4. Sharing & AI Image Generation
Invite a few students to read their passages aloud. (Speaker coach could be used here to help children present their writing to the class effectively and provide feedback on their presentation)
Use one or two to generate AI images and display them to the class.5. Assessment – Adjectives Quiz
Distribute a short quiz to assess understanding. (Created using Magic School assessment tool)
📊 Assessment & Differentiation
Formative: Observe students during writing and discussion.
Summative: Use the quiz to identify and assess understanding of adjective use.
Differentiation:
Provide word banks or sentence starters for students who need support.
Challenge early finishers to write a second paragraph or use similes/metaphorsThere were so many excellent AI tools presented and suggested in this course that I found it challenging to pick just one. As you can probably tell I used the copilot to assist with the lesson plan but I added some of my own elements to their suggested plan. This plan includes the use of Speaker coach for presenting the child’s word and providing real time feedback, an assessment resource I created on Magic School for adjective identification and also allows the children the opportunity to use AI in the classroom by inputting their description in an AI tool to create an image for their descriptive passage. There are so many opportunities for AI to enhance teaching and learning. I definitely plan on using these tools both for my own teacher planning and resource making but also aim to allow the children the opportunity to engage (where appropriate and relevant) with the AI tools in the classroom.
Scratch is great Justine. The Scratch junior App on IPad was great and using it as a tool to assist working memory is great. Another APP we used was called Lightbot. This is similar but you are given a path for the little robot to follow and you have to input the steps he must take to complete the level. It’s not a varied as Scratch (where you can create a wide range of unique actions and sequences) but is good for step by step instructions and challenges.
The example given by Eoin of using AI to create newspaper reports that linked to the 1916 rising and showed bias was excellent. I feel this could be used for a wide range of activities across the curriculum and would both enhance the children’s learning but also their critical thinking. Inputting the same event information in the prompt but slightly altering the perspective is an amazing way of having the class think about influences and bias. I think it could also be used in fictional situations and plan on using this method with my novels. This method would not only enhance language development and critical thinking but also align with the SPHE/Wellbeing curriculum and may even help us all to identify fake news (a very common topic in my classroom this year) We are teaching our children to question everything and thus become more active citizens. I was quite surprised at the age requirements of Gemini as we use Google classroom in our school and I thought this would have been available to all users. I will be teaching 6th class in September and feel AI could be used in this way in class particularly with our first novel The Ghost of Grania O’ Malley but of course as stated in this module it is important to follow the guidelines and best practice and I will of course be modelling first.
Hi Vikki,
I completely agree with Speaker Coach for presentations and project work as it would allow the children to practise before presenting to the class. The ability of the Speaker Coach to provide feedback as they practise is great and it might even slow them down, clarify topics and encourage them to look up and take a breath. In my 5th and 6th classes, I have given the children opportunities to practise ahead of presentation day and require a specified time limit but they often just focus on reading their words within a time limit. I have also encouraged self-assessment and peer evaluations with 2 stars and wish but the real time aspect of the speaker coach is great and unbiased. I look forward to trying it with my class but I know not every device will have access as not all our school devices are made the same! I had to online search how to get it on my teacher laptop and we need a microsoft account with the school laptops don’t all have. I’m sure one device could be rotated but between your 33! Hope you have better IT than us.
Part 1:
The Idea of image creating and descriptive writing – this is an excellent way to teach, encourage and improve adjectives and write descriptive passages. The idea of asking the class to input precise descriptions to achieve the same image is a great way to motivate and will definitely be something I will be doing.
Speaker coach is a great tool for improving presentations and debating.Part 2:
Accuracy in writing has always been an issue in my classroom with trying to find the balance between too much irrelevant information or not enough description. Using the prompts in AI will require the children to be more accurate and the idea of using an image creator AI and the children’s own prompts to match the writing to an image. This is an idea I will be using in my classroom. The Speaker coach will be a great support for project work presentations and debating. The new requirements for second level education and project work includes presentation elements and using speaker coach in my 6th class will be a great way of improving clarity and presentation skills and preparing them for secondary school.
The Math Story word problem generate is a great tool I will be using as our classrooms all have problem solving areas with a problem of the week and I found it challenging to find suitable problems based on the current topic in class. Being able to prompt what the AI tool to give exactly what we are looking at that week is awesome.
Twee is a brilliant tool for composing comprehension questions on a range of materials, would be great for getting questions on the children’s own compositions and checking for both comprehension and memory skills plus it gives answers. Will be using this too!
So many useful tools in this module that I will be using and hope will both improve my lessons and allow me more time.Hi Pat,
Well this year I banned the use of Wikipedia for referencing and research but the ease of use of the AI overview created a similar issue with the children just using the first thing they saw. I started requiring proper references and discussed plagiarism with the class. It’s a work in progress!
Absolutely Clare! I will have some children in my class in September with assistive technology and it is great to be getting information on tools and support that would help them fully and appropriate use their device for learning not just games or typing. Allowing them use tools like the immersive reader would enable them to access the same materials as peers while also supporting their needs.
I feel the opportunities presented in this module provide a lot of practical ideas for ways of using AI to enhance teaching and learning. The immersive reader is excellent and I will definitely be using this as a support for reading for dyslexic children. I used readtheory.org this year for comprehension skills and found that many children struggled with the reading, using the immersive reader would be great. It would however mean transcribing texts onto a word document and having a device with Microsoft suite. We used Google Docs with the Google classroom this year and, having just checked, there is no immersive reader in docs. I assume there would be alternatives for other software though.
I was also every interested in the Dreamspace programme and feel it would an excellent way to integrate STEM. I know many times I have done STEM, another teacher has done the same activity in a younger class. There are only so many times the children will design bridges before the interest and learning is gone! Having a consistent approach like the Dreamspace programme sounds great.
I know we weren’t asked but I would definitely not support the Chinese use of AI and hope we are never expected to accept and use such tools.I agree with the problem of google and with the new AI overview, search results can be very difficult to appropriately reference or further research. The suggested bots in this module provide more appropriate methods for searching.
I agree Inez that the possibilities of AI can be the way forward but I also think it is necessary to teach the children the dangers of accepting everything they see and becoming too reliant on a device or AI bot. Definitely using AI where appropriate would be great. I found the concept of AI hallucinating amazing. I would worry that without proper education and monitoring children’s individuality and creativity would suffer. Continuing to up-skill and be open to improvements is important for us all.
This first module has been very informative and has already opened my eyes to the positive aspects of AI and the uses for the classroom. Having recently conducted debating with my class and have the kids experience challenges when trying to research and properly reference their facts, I found the element of sources great. Oftentimes when my class completed online research the first result of their search was Wikipedia (which we all know the unreliability of) and their searches ended there. The new search AI overview caused further challenges when I asked the kids to reference the information they found. The Chatgpt bot provided excellent sources and I will be encouraging the use of AI for research. I also found the creativity of the bots amazing and I didn’t know it could create art. The mascot creator was great and I plan on using that for my class and perhaps even a new school crest. I will definitely be using the bots when trying to create new resources and also enable the children to use them as tools for learning.
