Presenting the Study of the Adjective
Material Description:
Adjective Grammar Box, filler Box IIIA, Box of Grammar Symbols, Noun family chart
Access to the farm
Adjective filler box contents:
IIIA: colours, IIIB: Dimension and number
The first two presentations can be done with any of the short chains form the bead cabinet and corresponding tickets.
IIIC: Shape, IIID: Sensorial qualities, tactile, IIIE: Sensorial qualities, taste, hearing, smell
Method:
Presentation to at least two children
Oral introduction
Ask children for ‘a book’ and then explain that it is not the one you wanted, until they ask which one, ask the child, ‘How did you know which one to get me…I told you the special word to describe the one I want’. Give more examples, e.g. request ‘a pencil’.
Activity
Show the child where the grammar box is kept and ask the child to arrange the long cards, and shuffle them. One child reads the first phrase from the long card, ‘The red book’, one child makes the phrase with the cards and the other child gets an example from the environment. Then the child reads the second phrase, ‘the black book’, ask the children, “What has changed?’ (red has become black). One child changes the adjective card and the other child exchanges the object for another one.
Symbols
The symbols are placed over the cards, ‘We use dark blue triangles for the words which describe which object we mean’.
Put back the objects, cards and symbols before repeating with all of the Long Cards.
Name Lesson
Remove the cards which name the parts of speech from the Grammar box, revealing the adjective last.
Do you remember how we talked about the articles and the nouns? Today we have used a new part of speech, a part which describes, we have used adjectives, we have used all these cards, with red, blue, green, orange. Ask the children to identify adjectives from the three sets of cards, for any adjectives they can think of, for adjectives to describe the weather, for adjectives to describe food and so on.
Recap all the forms of speech, asking for an article, adjective and noun.
To put away
Shuffle the cards
Transposition
After the children have been working with the part of speech for sometime, join them and demonstrate transposition.
Move the cards away from the symbols and move the adjective to a different place, read the new phrase and ask the children, ‘Does that sound right?’ After moving it to both new positions put it back to the original place to show the meaning in context. Remove the adjective all together and read the article and the noun, this makes sense, we can use the article and the noun without the adjective. Replace the adjective.
Aim:
We give an impression of the function of the adjective as something which always changes.
Notes:
For children familiar with function work from the Casa no introduction will be needed, if they have not extend the oral introduction and introduce the symbols a day or so before presenting the grammar box.
At Elementary we transpose, moving only the part of speech we are highlighting
Follow up work:
The child can continue to work with all the filler Boxes but IIIF, that will be shown later.
Bring out the chart for the noun family and name all the characters, the noun, article and adjective.
Command Cards for the Adjective
Material Description:
There are 2 boxes of command cards for the adjective. The second set is distinct as they are scientific or experiment command cards. First set is coded adj. C. 1-18. The second set is coded adj. E. 1-4
The adjectives that are the subject of the command appear in bold lettering at the top of the command card and in the text itself. There are small loose brown cards, one for each adjective in bold.
- The first 6 cards contain qualitative adjectives.
- From 7-12, the cards contain quantitative adjectives (cardinal and ordinal).
- 13 – 15 are demonstrative.
- 16-18 contain possessive adjectives.
English also has interrogative adjectives that are not featured in the material (which, what).
The scientific command cards must be done with the children.
Method:
These are given to a group, say, ‘Today we are going to look at these, these are called command cards, they are command cards for the adjective, do you remember about abbreviations, it says ‘adj’ for adjective and ‘C’. for command, they are numbered all the way from 1- 18, let’s check them.
I am going to taken out the first one. Ask the child to ‘read it and perform it’
And then read the sentence on the command card.
Review, saying, ‘See all the words we have on the table they are all qualitative adjectives, they are adjectives which tell us what the objects are like, size or texture or colour. Let’s look at more qualitative adjectives and then we will look at the envelopes with other kind of adjectives’
Continue completing many envelopes.
After the lesson:
The children continue working with the envelopes, ask them to come and find you when they find ones which are not qualitative.
Classification of the Adjective
Material Description:
The adjective classification chart. The brown cards and command cards, a basket
Method:
Remove the adjective cards and mix them in a basket.
Show the adjective chart, read the types of adjective and explain what they are
Read an adjective from the card, e.g. ‘large’ and ask the child, ‘What kind of adjective do you think this is?’ (qualitative) Place it on the chart
Continue in the same manner, building a long list
- Qualitative adjectives; large, smoothest
- Quantitative adjectives; ninth, eight
- Demonstrative; this, that
- Interrogative (blank)
- Possessive; his her
To put away follow the abbreviation on the back.
Aim:
To classify adjectives and be aware of the terms.
Notes:
There is no control of error, this is a reasoning exercise, with the child’s own knowledge acting as a control.
After the lesson:
The children can continue this kind of activity, writing lists of kinds of adjectives if they wish.
