Grammar Lesson Plans: Nouns

Before beginning your noun lesson plan, read the book “A Mink, a Fink, A Skating Rink: What is a Noun?” to students. Have students raise their hands when they hear you reach the definition of a noun. Then continue reading, emphasizing the various words of people, places, and things mentioned in the book. Have students write summaries of the book when you finish, and encourage them to share their summaries with the class. As you continue with the noun lesson plan, refer back to what the students read in the book.

Make a three-column chart on the board with the headings “Person,” “Place,” and “Thing.” Pick a broad theme that relates to something else the students are learning about, such as “Ancient Rome,” “geometry,” or “genetics.” Encourage students to come up with at least five people, five places, and five things that relate to the theme. For people, a person related to geometry might be “Pythagorus” or “architect,” a place related to geometry might be “the Pentagon,” and a thing related to geometry might be “compass.” For a more advanced class, you might want to include a column for “idea” as well.

Break the class into groups and have them fill out their own charts, similar to the one you have on the board. Encourage them to come up with their own themes, and give them some ideas such as “school,” “Harry Potter,” or “soccer.” When they finish, encourage them to share their charts with the class. If you’d like, give them large pieces of poster board and have them create charts to hang on the walls. Alternatively, you can have students compete to come up with the most person, place, or thing words that have to do with a particular topic.

In their groups, have students create a list of sentences that contain nouns. Make sure that they create an answer key that lists the nouns in each sentence. Then have the groups swap their lists with each other and try to identify all of the nouns in each sentence. Have groups check each other’s work, encouraging them to come to you if they’re not sure about whether a word is a noun or not. Using this noun lesson plan should ensure that students fully understand what a noun is and how to identify it in a sentence.

See this article for additional fun noun activities and games.