We ended up sitting outside in the sunshine working in groups using metaphors, similes and personification to describe a great big gum tree that grows near the primary playground. When they had finished, they took turns reading their paragraphs while everyone else lay on the ground with their eyes closed and tried to let the words create pictures in their minds.
Because they were so good, I let them have ten minutes to play on the playground and for a small moment in time they forgot to be cool and aloof and they just played.
And afterwards, we wrote about it. We described a group of children playing in a playground and hopefully they learnt the joy of writing something you have experienced and the way that writing lets you share those experiences with others.
I know this post is a bit sentimental - teaching certainly isn't always like this. But today, they made me smile.