If you're teaching personification as part of a figurative language unit in Years 3 to 6, you'll know the idea is easy to introduce and hard to make stick. Students enjoy a sentence like “the wind whispered through the trees”, but many can't yet say why it works, or use the technique in their own writing.
These personification worksheets for Years 3 to 6 give you a print-and-go sequence that takes students from spotting personification to writing it, with answer keys and teacher notes included.
What personification is, and why writers use it
Personification is when a writer gives a thing a human action or feeling. The thing might be an object, a place, the weather or an idea. It can't really do what the sentence says, and that gap is where the meaning sits. The wind can't whisper, so the reader works out that it made a soft, quiet sound.
It's worth teaching the purpose as well as the definition, because students write better personification once they know what it's for. Writers use it to:
- help the reader picture a scene more clearly
- set a mood, so a storm can seem angry or a morning can seem sleepy
- make a description more interesting than a plain fact
- give a place or an object a personality of its own
The worksheets teach one routine that students reuse on every page: read the sentence, find the thing, find the human action or feeling, ask “can it really do that?”, then say what it really means.
What the personification worksheets cover
The 14 worksheets follow a careful progression, so each page builds on the one before it:
- Spot it: the five steps, finding the thing and its human action, and sorting personification from sentences that aren't
- Understand it: explaining what a sentence really means and choosing human actions that fit
- Read it: personification in a poem and in a short story, and why the writer used it
- Write it: showing feelings, upgrading plain sentences, describing a setting and writing a poem
- Show what you know: a one-page check you can use before and after teaching
Key vocabulary is used consistently across the set: personification, figurative language, the thing, human action, human feeling and “really means”.
Teaching the hardest part: personification or not?
The most common mistake is calling any descriptive sentence personification. Students mix it up with similes, with plain facts, and with real people or animals doing what they really do. “The snow was like a white blanket” compares two things, but nothing in it acts like a person. “The dog barked at the truck” is simply true.
Several worksheets target this directly. Students decide yes or no for tricky sentences, find the odd one out in Two Truths and a Lie, then fix the sentence that isn't personification. One question does most of the work: is a thing doing something only a person can do?
Designed the way you teach
You can work through the worksheets in order as a short unit, or pull single pages for explicit teaching, literacy groups, homework or early finishers. The reading pages use an original poem and a short story, so students meet personification in connected text and not only in single sentences.
The writing pages move in small steps, from upgrading a plain sentence to planning a setting description and writing a poem with a frame to follow. Full answer keys, sample answers and a writing rubric are included, along with notes on the errors to watch for.
The set also includes extras you can use anywhere in the sequence: two posters, sorting cards with a sorting mat, a partner game and exit tickets.
One note
This set teaches personification only. Similes appear as a contrast, but other figurative language devices such as metaphor, alliteration and onomatopoeia are not covered. The file is a printable PDF and is not editable.
Quick facts
14 worksheets · 25 pages · Years 3 to 6 (Stage 2 and Stage 3) · English · black and white printable PDF · digital download
Get the Personification Worksheets →
A few questions teachers ask
What year levels are the personification worksheets for?
They are written for Years 3 to 6, which is Stage 2 and Stage 3 in NSW. The early worksheets suit students meeting personification for the first time, and the writing pages stretch older students.
Do the worksheets include answers?
Yes. There are full answer keys with sample answers for the open-ended pages, plus teacher notes and a writing rubric.
Can I edit the worksheets?
No. The set is a non-editable printable PDF in black and white.
Do they cover similes and metaphors as well?
No. The set teaches personification only. Similes are used as a contrast so students can tell the two apart, and metaphors are not covered.