Mini Lesson Plan: Nouns

What are nouns?

Nouns are the all-important component in the English grammar. They are the names of things, and they mark the subject of a sentence! Oft-times, they are pretty much what a sentence is structured around! Being one of the first grammar topics that children are formally introduced to in schools, it is essential that we teach nouns in the most fun and informative way. This lesson plan might just be your handy assistant!

Activity 1: Twinkle Trails Episode 4 — The Noun Forest

Packed in a short fun-sized musical, this video takes its young audience on a walk through the Noun Forest where instead of raining rain in the rainforest, it rains nouns! Through the walk, the kids will be introduced to the four most basic types of nouns, and they are:

Quick Review:

Concrete nouns — things you can touch and see

Abstract nouns — things you think or you believe

Proper nouns — names of certain things, places, and people

Pronouns — e.g. ‘he’ and ‘she’

Children already use nouns in their daily conversations and nouns are usually their first words (think: Mummy, Daddy, milk, etc)! What this video does is to point out to kids that specific words they’re using are called nouns and explains clearly what each type of noun is! Simple, yet, we’ve just established basic grammar for the kids!

Try to highlight the significance of nouns to the kids so they can appreciate the topic better. For example, you can ask them to write a sentence about themselves and when they’re done, have them circle the nouns that appear in their sentence. They’ll be amazed by how many times nouns are used!

But of all the nouns we’ve come across, my favourite one is you.
Ms Twinkle Twinkle Trails Episode 4 — The Noun Forest

Activity 2: Game time!

Who says grammar is boring and rigid? Well, yeah, it can get rigid sometimes, but it can still be fun! From the classic blackboard race to a noun Tic-Tac-Toe, here are some great activities for the kiddos to revel in some awesome grammar entertainment! Want to engage the kids in even more exciting activities? Living Montessori is a gateway to a wide variety of games, activities, and lesson ideas, complete with free printables!

p/s: Are you looking to take the children to the next level of learning about nouns? This educational video below goes further in-depth about nouns as it takes the kids on a wonderful skiing trip down the Noun Mountain!

Activity 3: Activity sheets

Alright, it’s time to settle the children down now and to recap on all the interesting grammar facts they’ve just learnt! And activity sheets like these are perfect for the occasion! Carefully crafted for preschool children, these worksheets help children to recap on the most basic grammar such as identifying nouns. It then gradually eases into higher-level activities such as sorting between two different types of nouns. This spectrum of different difficulty levels also makes for a wonderful bridging activity from Kindergarten to Primary One!

Activity 4: Self-directed learning

Can’t get enough of nouns and grammar? Let the kids decide for themselves what they want to find out more about! Self-directed learning has received increased attention from educators in recent years as research starts drawing out more benefits that it can bring, like confidence and ownership for learning! And easily-navigable sites like Easy Grammar 4 Kids make it a much better learning journey for our little ones! With the site’s thoughtful curation of over 10 different games for young learners, from the nouns we’ve covered so far to the higher-level collective nouns (nouns used to denote groups, eg. a herd, a council, a class), the children can choose whether they want to further strengthen their existing grammar knowledge or to conquer newer grounds!

Also, the website goes beyond the preschool coverage of grammar, extending to antonyms, synonyms, and even idioms. Parents, you might want to save this site for helpful reference in the future for the kids!

And that shall be all for this week’s lesson plan! Just before you set off for another week of beautiful lessons with the kids, here’s an article published in Guardian on teaching English grammar in school, a short piece featuring lesson tips and ideas to get you started on a promising note! Have fun teaching!

SOURCES

Bright Hub Education

Guardian

PHOTOS

Flickr (www.audio-luci-store.it)