Describing Feelings and Senses in Sentences

You will learn how to use feeling words and sensory words inside full sentences. Feeling words tell how you feel inside, like happy or scared. Sensory words tell what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. In this lesson, you will build sentences that share your feelings and your senses with other people.

A feeling word names an emotion inside you. Some feeling words are happy, sad, scared, and excited. You can put a feeling word right into a sentence to tell someone how you feel. For example, you can say, "I feel happy when I see my friend." The word happy tells your feeling, and the rest of the sentence tells why you feel that way.

A sensory word tells what your five senses notice. Your five senses are sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Some sensory words are soft, loud, sweet, and cold. You can use a sensory word in a sentence too. For example, "The blanket feels soft on my skin." The word soft tells how the blanket feels when you touch it.

When you write a sentence with a feeling word, you tell your feeling and a reason for it. You can use this pattern: I feel (feeling word) when (something happens). Try this sentence: "I feel scared when I hear loud thunder." The feeling word scared shows how you feel, and the second part tells why you feel that way.

You can also build sentences with sensory words. Try this pattern: the (thing) (sense verb) (sensory word). For example, "The lemon tastes sour." The word sour is the sensory word, and it tells you what the lemon tastes like. You can change the sensory word to describe many different things, like "The music sounds loud" or "The rock feels rough."

Notice that a sense verb changes with each sense. You might say a flower smells sweet, a drum sounds loud, ice feels cold, candy tastes yummy, or a rainbow looks bright. Each sentence still uses the same short pattern.

Feeling Words: Words that tell how someone feels inside, like happy, sad, scared, or excited.

Sensory Words: Words that describe what you notice with your five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Sentence: A group of words that shares one whole idea, like a feeling or something your senses notice.

Sense Verb: A verb such as feels, tastes, sounds, smells, or looks that connects a thing to a sensory word.

Excited: A feeling word that means you feel very happy and eager about something.

Sour: A sensory word that describes a sharp, tangy taste, like a lemon.

Rough: A sensory word that describes something bumpy or not smooth when you touch it.

Try telling a sentence about how you feel today, using a feeling word like happy, sad, or excited, and adding a reason. Then try telling a sentence about something you can touch, hear, taste, smell, or see, using a sensory word. Ask a family member or friend to guess your feeling or your sense from your sentence.

Related lessons

• Feeling and Sensory Words