Another part of speech are adjectives.
I absolutely love teaching adjectives because it's describing words.
And when we describe something, we give things details; we give things character.
Now I just start by teaching my kids that adjectives are four things:
Color, Shape, Size and Kind.
Now to reinforce this, I play a little game called "I Spy."
I look around the room and I spy something.
And I'm gonna have my kids guess what it is by just using descriptive words or adjectives.
I'll start by saying, "I spy something in the room that's blue."
So all my students are looking around the room for something blue.
I ask them not to shout out right away.
Keep it in, because I'm gonna give them four descriptive words to identify what the object is.
So we know first the Color is blue.
Second, the Shape: "I spy something blue and rectangular."
Of course, my kids know what a rectangle is, so we're looking for something blue and rectangular.
That's the Shape.
The Size:
"I spy something blue, rectangular, and pretty small."
That's hard with Size sometimes, because it has to have a comparison.
So I start by telling them, "It's small-- small compared to the size of our room."
Hmm...Color [is] blue, Shape is rectangular, Size is small.
Now Kind: Kind can be a little tricky.
So I'm going to tell them that my blue, rectangular, small object is holding something white and fluffy inside.
Now to avoid everybody shouting out and telling me exactly what it is,
I have them put their thumb up if they know what it is.
I press my thumb against their thumb for them to guess.
I have one student guess that it is my carpet rug.
"Oh you were close, but it's not correct."
I have another student guess that it's my box of Kleenex.
And we go over the four adjectives to decide if it was correct.
It is blue. It is rectangular. It's small in size, and it's holding something white and fluffy inside.
So now, the most fun part is that I get to have that student who guessed it correct
play the game with their friends.
So, of course, here's the rules--and I can also write this on the boards so they don't forget.
Color, Shape, Size, and Kind.
Here's another example. "I spy something that is red."
"It's circular,"
"it is small,"
"and it is hard."
Ooh, there again with that Kind.
The Color was red, the Shape was circular, the Size was small--or maybe I could use another descriptive word.
We use "small" too much.
Maybe it's "tiny" or "little."
Helping the kids expand their vocabulary, making it wider, giving them more words to use.
And that Kind was "hard."
My kids guess, thumbs up, "What do you got for me?"
It is the round ball.
Check it: It's red. It's circular. It's tiny, and it's hard.
So that student gets to go for the next one.
I ask them to use as many different shapes as they can too.
We use rectangle, we use circle, so now we're getting excited about the game.
Here we go.
"I spy, with my little eye, something that is tan."
Ooh, tan is not a color that we always use.
It's not-so brown, It's not-so white. It's tan, hmm.
"I spy something that is triangular." Triangles are difficult to find around the room.
"I spy something that is little." This time they used a different word.
And again, it's "hard," but is there a different word for "hard"?
Maybe it is...
Hmm...
"Wood." Wood describes something. Using different words to describe the object.
Thumb up! My kids guessed it. It is the triangular block.
Let's go over the adjectives: It was tan in color. It is triangular in shape.
It is little, and it's made out of wood.
And that way, instead of using the word hard again, they got to describe the Kind as wood.
What I found with early childhood is that describing color [is] the easiest thing they can do.
I have a purple dress. I am wearing blue pants.
That kind of stuff is really easy for them.
The shape works very easily as well.
So, I have a round face.
My ring is square.
They can associate the shapes.
Now the size is easy too. Our room is giant and my little clip is...tiny.
Okay, so they can associate those sizes.
Now it's Kind that gets a little tricky.
I have them remember it by "hard," "soft," "fuzzy," "furry",
and then we can go into feelings.
Kind can be how you feel.
"I feel happy today."
So instead of just saying my students are great, my students are happy.
And then I have a feelings card.
This really helps with students to associate how they're feeling everyday.
Or, to connect with how they're feeling and that's their adjective.
"I am happy."
"I'm sad."
"I'm content."
"I'm tired."
"I'm scared."
"I'm frightened."
"I'm nervous."
"I'm thoughtful."
"I'm silly."
"I'm excited."
"I'm surprised."
and "I'm proud."
Adjectives can be very fun to teach.
Again, I teach them with four basic rules. It's Color, Shape, Size, and Kind.
Adjectives describe our world. Thank you.