First Grade
- Review the skills from Kindergarten.
- Translate these parts of speech into what you read. Review that the pictures on the pages of the books you read indicate examples of nouns. Actions that the characters in the stories do are examples of verbs. Emphasize the noun and verb connection. “Writers need verbs in stories for characters to move and speak.”
- Complete grammar worksheet “Identifying Basic Nouns.”
- Extra Engagement: Use the information presented within the sheet to model sentences on a whiteboard or smartboard to create a whole class lesson. Cut the sheet apart, gluing the related answers from the answer key on the back to use within a cooperative learning structure or as a self-checking center activity.
- Complete grammar worksheet “Sorting Basic Nouns.” Emphasize that nouns can be people, places or things.
- Extra Engagement: “Hands-on Basic Noun Sort” Cut the words from the sheet into strips for a hands-on partner activity. Allow students to take turns choosing a noun strip and physically placing it in the proper category. You could also use this idea as an independent literacy center activity. Check student work as a formative assessment tool and clear up any misconceptions before moving on. *Provide printed copy of answer key for a self-checking center or activity.
- Complete grammar worksheet “Identifying Action Verbs.”
- Extra Engagement: Use the information presented within the sheet to model sentences on a whiteboard or smartboard to create a whole class lesson. Cut the sheet apart, gluing the related answers from the answer key on the back to use within a cooperative learning structure or as a self-checking center activity.
- Even More Engagement: Print out and cut apart “Action Verb Cards.” Invite students to print their own original sentences on sentence strips using the provided action verb. Have them draw a box around the verb in the sentence on the sentence strip. Ask each student to pass his/her action verb card to another student. Upon receiving a new action verb, each student should cover up his/her original “boxed in” verb to create a new silly sentence. For example, If a student had the sentence. “Erica ate the cupcake,” his/her new sentence may read, “Erica threw the cupcake.” Invite students to read their new sentences aloud.
Proper Nouns
- Look all around your city, in grocery stores, and everywhere you go for proper nouns. Emphasize that proper nouns always start with capital letters. Using proper nouns makes your message more specific. For example, if I'm in the grocery store, and I say, “Bring me a box of cereal,” I would get a different result that I would if I say, “Bring me a box of Cocoa Puffs.”
- Look for proper nouns in the stories you read. The names of characters in stories are always proper nouns.
- Play the Noun Game: Give your child a noun, and ask him/her to tell you an example of a proper noun that would fit into this category. For example, if you say “store, ”your child could say “Walmart.” If you say “restaurant,” your child could say “McDonald's.”If you say “teacher” your child could say “Mrs. Corbett.”
- Extra Engagement: Print and cut apart the “Noun Game Printable Cards.” Students can work with a partner or in small groups to draw a card and name a proper noun that matches the common noun displayed. As a small group/whole class activity, draw a noun card out of a container, set a timer, and allow small groups or partners to brainstorm as many proper nouns as they can that would fit that common noun category. For example, “cereal” could generate “Lucky Charms, Rice Krispies, Frosted Flakes............”
- Complete grammar worksheet “Identifying Proper Nouns.”
- Extra Engagement: Use the information presented within the sheet to model sentences on a whiteboard or smartboard to create a whole class lesson. Cut the sheet apart, gluing the related answers from the answer key on the back to use within a cooperative learning structure or as a self-checking center activity.
*During reading and writing activities, ask students to identify the nouns, proper nouns, and actions verbs in sentences they read and write. Bringing the parts of speech into students' everyday reading and writing activities makes grammar a more concrete and less abstract concept.
Pronouns
- Discuss nouns, such as people, pets, and objects. Identify the pronoun that would be appropriate for each. When your child is ready, remember to include plural pronouns, such as we and they.
- Complete the grammar worksheet “Subject Pronouns.”
- Extra Engagement: Complete a cooperative learning activity by printing and cutting apart the “Hands-On Subject Pronoun Activity Cards.” Cut the cards apart with lateral rectangles together, so that a fold on the middle line will create a self-checking learning card. Students can present the noun on one side, and check their partner's oral answer by looking at the answer on the other side of the card. These cards could also be used in a literacy center as a self-checking activity.
Compound Words
- Identify compound words as two words that are stuck together. Most compound words (butterfly, mailbox...) are two common nouns stuck together to make a new word. Sometimes a proper noun could be used to form a compound word, like Superman or Candyland. Also, two verbs can create a compound word like, “outsmart” or pronouns like “everyone.”
- Complete the grammar activity “Compound Word Matching Game” by printing out the words on card stock and cutting them apart. Use the cards withing a cooperative learning structure or place the cards face down as a memory matching game.
- Complete the grammar sheet “Compound Words” to practice identifying compound words within the context of a sentence.
Adjectives
- Emphasize the adjectives are needed when writing to create a clearer picture for your reader. Demonstrate this by choosing a simple object/common noun to place in a paper bag (like a box, or candle). Describe the object/noun while allowing the students to draw pictures of what you are describing: “My box is little. It has a red and blue striped lid. The sides have big yellow dots. It has a fluffy pink bow on top. The bottom ….....” (Create an example that works for you.) When the pictures are shown, and the actual object is revealed, emphasize that the adjectives helped to describe the object even when it couldn't be seen.
- Identify nouns everywhere you go and ask your children/students to give adjectives that would describe each noun.
- Use old greeting cards, calendars, or magazines to cut out pictures of interest. Allow students to create graphic organizers, or webs, by gluing a picture in the middle of the web and filling in the outside bubbles with adjectives to describe the picture. Take it a step further, and challenge students to write a paragraph using the graphic organizer as a prewriting activity.
- Write sentences identifying nouns and “juicing sentences up” with adjectives.
- Complete the grammar sheet “Sorting Simple Adjectives.”
- Extra Engagement: Use the information within the grammar sheet in a more hands-on way by cutting the adjectives into strips to be sorted by students in a whole class, individually, or with a partner. Using this idea as a “we do” to build upon is a great way to connect new information to prior knowledge. Students will analyze whether the adjectives presented would best describe a pizza, teacher, or car.
Beware of Contractions
- Notice contractions in everyday speech when you are communicating at home or in the classroom.Identify contractions in the books you read. Note what two words are going together to create the contraction.
- Complete grammar activity “Contraction Match” and “Contractions With Not Matching.”
- Extra Engagement: Use the printable matching game within a cooperative learning structure. For example, distribute one game card to each student and conduct a “Silent Search.” Without talking, students walk around the room holding up their game card for all to see. Partners visually look for their matching partner and stand together or “come together to the rug” or another area of the classroom designated. Once all partners have found their matches, facilitate an oral check by allowing each partner pair to present their match to be validated by the other students.
- Even More Engagement: Students may complete grammar sheet “Using Contractions (Primary)” as an individual assessment tool.