The Life Cycle of a Daisy Blog Post

STEAM Activities: Fun with Figurative Language

Nonfiction books like The Life Cycle of a Daisy can inspire Language Arts–focused extensions that add depth to readers’ knowledge. Try the following sequential activities with your students to help them explore connections between everyday expressions and the natural world they’re learning about.

Discussion: The Concept of Simile

Display The Life Cycle of a Daisy’s cover and have volunteers describe a daisy in their own words. Then explain that you’ll use the daisy to introduce a figure of speech.

Ask students whether they’ve heard the saying “as fresh as a daisy.” Explain that it’s one example of simile, a figure of speech using “as” to compare two unlike things. (If students have already learned that “like” can also be used to form similes, acknowledge that, and note that for these activities they’ll focus on similes formed with “as.”)

Share in-context full-sentence examples of the daisy simile. For example:

• He felt as fresh as a daisy.
• The spring air smelled as fresh as a daisy.
• The puppy looked as fresh as a daisy.

Follow-up discussion questions:

• What does “fresh” mean to you? (new, clean, bright, shiny, cheerful, colorful)
• What’s fresh about daisies? (They’re bright/colorful/pretty, they’re flowers, they bloom and re-bloom.)
• Why do you think “as fresh as a daisy” became a common figure of speech? (Most people have seen daisies, daisies make people smile, daisies are bright and cheerful, daisies grow all over the world.)

Game Time: Complete the Similes!

Guide the class in verbally filling in the blanks to complete familiar similes. As time permits, discuss additional thoughts about each simile.

• As slow as a _. (snail — or sloth, turtle, tortoise)
• As quiet as a _. (mouse)
• As busy as a _. (bee)
• As sly as a _. (fox)
• As_as a lion. (brave)
• As_as an owl. (wise)
• As_as an ox. (strong)
• As proud as a _. (peacock)

Independent Brainstorming: Create Your Own Similes

Have each student generate a list of 10 original similes. Challenge them to come up with ones they’ve never heard before.

For reference during the activity, display the original simile example and its stripped-down template:

As fresh as a daisy.

As_as a(n)_.

Remind students that the first blank takes an adjective, or describing word, and the second blank takes a noun, or a person, place, or thing.

Time the activity and, at the end, encourage students to present some of their favorite new similes with the group.