Lesson Plan: Tactile Parts of Speech
a lesson plan for all learners, with technology options
Grade level(s): 1-3
Subject(s): Language Arts
National Standards:
NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts*
Communication Strategies:
Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
Introduction:
Reinforcing the differences between nouns, verbs, adjectives can be quite challenge, even if you do not use the actual terms for the parts of speech. This lesson plan is intended to throw parts of speech for a loop! It will give children a chance to feel and experience them without paper, internalizing these concepts even more. This activity provides consistency, repetitiveness, tactile and visual reinforcement—great for children with special needs.
Objective:
Students will identify noun, verb and adjective.
Materials:
- objects with texture that can be identified by touch (Ex. orange, rock, crayon, sock, water bottle, etc). Have enough for everybody
- A bag or a box
Procedure:
- Review noun, adjective, and verb (you can expand upon these if you’d like).
- Write noun, adjective and verb on the board, creating columns. Use a different color for each part of speech (also see tech options).
- Bring out your box of objects and have a child put his hand into the box.
- Ask him to pick one object and guess what it is.
- When he names it, ask him whether the object’s name is a noun, adjective or verb.
- When he answers, write the word under the noun heading.
- Ask him what it feels like. Write that word under adjective.
- Ask him what he can do with it. Write that word under verb.
- Then have him put those words in a sentence. Write it on the board, too.
- Repeat with the next child. (Ideally, you should do every child for the sole purpose that repetition is one of the best teaching tools. If not at once, you could divide this activity up and play throughout your English lessons for the week.)
Assessment:
Save the sentences you write, and ask students to circle, point to, or repeat the noun, verb or adjective when you read the sentence aloud with them. Keep a checklist of which students are able to demonstrate understanding. If you use an interactive whiteboard, reopen the file you created with the students and have students use the whiteboard pens to highlight the words in colors that match the correct part os speech.
Technology options and tips:
Take a digital picture of each child WITH his/her object so he remembers the “feel" of it. Put the pictures in your interactive whiteboard file (flipchart, SMART Notebook, or other whiteboard software) . Write your sentences on the interactive whiteboard, under each picture. Save the file. Use the file for additional practice and assessment.
*Standards for the English Language Arts, by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, Copyright 1996 by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.