The Adjective

Questions to ask for the Adjective:
Does this sound right?
Is this the way we talk?
Does this make sense?

Materials

- The farm
- Grammar symbols
- Supply tray
- Prepared cards for independent work, including adjectives and nouns for items in the farm

Note

This can be done with one child or in a small group.

Presentation 1: Positioning of the words

Materials

- The farm
- Supply tray
- Symbol tray

Presentation

1. Familiarize the children with the farm.
2. Bring the children’s attention to the characteristics about each animal by using as many descriptive words as possible.
3. Show the children where you get the symbol tray.
4. Have a seat with the children at a round table.
5. Write the name of an animal from the farm on a slip of paper. (Write an animal for which there is more than one, for example: “The Horse”.)
6. Have a child read the slip and then go and get the animal.
7. Talk about how nice that horse is.
8. But tell the child that it wasn’t the one you were thinking of because you didn’t give him enough information.
9. Write on another slip, “black” and have the child go and get the black horse.
10. Talk about how yes, that is the horse you were thinking of.
11. Then place the slip “black” in front of the slip “the horse”.
12. Have the child read it out loud: “black the horse”.
13. Bring to the child’s attention that “black the horse” doesn’t sound right.
14. Switch the slips so it reads “the horse black” and have the child read it out loud.
15. Bring to the child’s attention that this also doesn’t sound right.
16. Then show the child how we have to cut the “the” from the “horse” and then place these three slips of paper together to read “the black horse”.
17. Bring attention to how that sounds correct.
18. Introduce the symbols and tell the children that they will be used to mark the words.
19. Introduce the child to the noun symbol and tell him that we use this to show the word that told us “what he got” (the horse/noun) and place it above the noun in the phrase.
20. Take out the small dark blue triangle and tell the child that this shows us “which one” to get (sturdy) and place it above the adjective.
21. Take out the small light blue triangle and tell the child that this shows us that “there is only one” (the) and place it above the article.
22. Then have all of the children read the phrase.
23. Repeat for other animals allowing the children to cut the “the” away from the noun and place the three slips in the correct order.

Presentation 2: Prepared Tickets

Materials

- The farm
- The symbol tray
- The prepared tickets

Presentation

1. Have the child read the phrase written on the prepared ticket and then go and get that one animal.
2. Have the child use the symbols to show the noun, article, and adjective.
3. Stay with the children until they each understand the procedure.
4. The children go through the whole set with you or without you if they understand the procedure.
5. Once done, the children put away the material.

Exerice 1

The children can work alone with the prepared tickets.

Exerice 2

The children can make booklets or list of words.

Purpose

Direct

To make the child aware of the individual words in reading and particularly the function and position of the adjective.

Control of Error

None in the material but the directress is available if needed and the children help each other.

Age

4 1/2 - 5 years onwards

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