Singular, Plural, and Possessive Nouns
If you are getting ready to teach nouns in 1st grade, I have a few ideas, activities, and anchor charts for you!
Before we begin, make sure you are familiar with the standards that you need to cover (which may vary from place to place).
The Common Core standards are:
- L.1.1.B – Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.
- L.1.1.C – Use singular and plural nouns with matching verbs in basic sentences (e.g., He hops; We hop).
I’ve prepared 5 lessons that will help you get the job done!
- Lesson 1 – I can tell what a noun is.
- Lesson 2 – I can sort nouns into categories of people, animals, places, and things.
- Lesson 3 – I can change a singular noun into a plural noun and use both correctly.
- Lesson 4 – I can use possessive nouns and not confuse their spelling with the spelling of plural nouns.
- Lesson 5 – I can use common and proper nouns correctly.
➽ This post will address Lessons 3 and 4.
➽ For Lessons 1 and 2 click here.
➽ For Lesson 5 click here.
Lesson 3 – I
can change a singular noun into a plural noun and use both nouns properly.
This
lesson is pretty self-explanatory. Here’s what my chart looks like in the
beginning of the lesson.
I begin my mini-lesson by reviewing what we already know about nouns, and then I introduce the concept of singular and plural nouns.
I write a singular noun on each line, and let the kids tell me what the plural noun will be.
I make sure to point out the “s” in the end of each plural noun.
*Tip: Because this is an introductory lesson, don’t use nouns with tricky plural spellings. That can be done when you spiral back to nouns a little later in the year. Try to avoid irregular plurals (mice, children, people) or plurals with big spelling changes (leaves, berries).
This is
what the chart looks like in the end of the lesson.
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| I like to maximize this lesson by using a variety of adjectives that describe quantity. It helps students add vocabulary to their lexicon, and it gives them synonyms to apply to their writing later on! |
Here
are some activities to practice using singular and plural nouns.
*Tip: If you laminate this chart and the sentence strips, you can easily place it in a Literacy Center so the kids can do the activity independently!
Lesson 4 – I
can use possessive nouns and not confuse their spelling with the spelling of
plural nouns.
This is
a tough lesson to teach because possessive nouns and plural nouns that end in
“s” sound exactly the same! You need to make the distinction visually, and use
prompts to help your students with the reasoning portion.
Here is
the anchor chart I use to show kids what a possessive noun is, and how it is
different from a plural noun.
Teach
your kids to substitute “many____” for the noun in the sentence to see if it
makes sense. Write a sentence on the board like “The girls mom was happy.”
“In the
sentence: “The girls mom was happy”, to know if you need to make a possessive
noun, let’s try saying:
“Many
girls mom was happy”. – That doesn’t make sense!
Now try an apostrophe to make a
possessive noun.
“The
girl’s mom was happy” – That shows that the girl has a mom that was happy. That
makes sense!
Note:
Of course this is the simplified version! Things get complicated with
possessive plural nouns and things like that. But this is a good way to introduce
the concept in 1st Grade.
For
independent practice, I have my students work in pairs or individually on these activities. Again, if you have time, you can easily create sentences on your
own for this lesson!
If you are looking for supporting materials for your noun lessons, I’ve uploaded my materials onto my TpT store. The file includes sorting cards, a sorting mat, lots of practice sheets, and even an editable file that lets you generate your own materials!
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I hope
you got some good ideas from this post! Thank you for reading!