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by Liana Mahoney
Topics: Second Grade, Reading, Writing

If helping your child learn parts of speech makes you want to take a nap, try this parts of speech exercise. It’s a sure way to keep those creative juices flowing, for both you and your child.

What You Need:

paper and pencil

What You Do:


Step 1

Choose one part of speech to practice at a time. Here’s a list of them, and a brief description to get you going:

  • Nouns – a person, place, thing (there are common nouns, which are not capitalized, and there are proper nouns, which are capitalized because they are names of people, places, or things). For example: cat, day, sound, coffee, bone, book (common nouns)

  • Verbs – action words. For example: run, read, eat, skipping, jogged, loved, thought

  • Adjectives – describing words. For example: green, round, shiny, tall, old, wooden

  • Adverbs – words that describe verbs (many end in –ly) For example: quickly, busily, happily, angrily
     

Step 2

Have your child write the chosen part of speech vertically, in all capital letters, down the left side of the paper, as shown:

N

O

U

N


Now have your child create an acrostic poem about this word, using only words that are that part of speech. This means that for the first line, she will need to think of a noun that starts with the letter n, such as nest, net, or noodle. She writes her noun beside the capital letter N, and uses the capital N as the first letter. Then she goes on to the next line, and thinks of a noun that begins with the letter o, such as octopus, octagon, or ox. She continues in this way until all the vertical letters have been used.

Step 3

Have her reread her NOUN acrostic poem. Ask her to explain what all the words in the poem have in common. (They are all nouns, or they are all people, places, or things.)

Step 4

Repeat for other parts of speech. Then, compile all the parts of speech pages into a stapled booklet. If your child ever forgets what a noun is, she can read her own poetry to find out!