Nouns, verbs and adjectives
A short captioned lesson on naming, doing and describing words, for children. Free, with a full transcript and teaching notes.
Read the whole lesson
Three kinds of word Hello, word explorers! Today we meet three kinds of words: naming words, doing words and describing words. Let us go on a word hunt.
Nouns name A noun is a naming word. It names a person, a place or a thing. Dog, school, teacher, apple. If you can name it, it is a noun.
Verbs do A verb is a doing word. Run, jump, sleep, eat. Let us act some out: jump! Run on the spot! Sleep! Doing words are full of action.
Adjectives describe An adjective is a describing word. It tells us more about a noun. Not just a dog, but a big, brown, fluffy dog. Adjectives paint a picture.
The small cat sleeps. Look at this sentence. The small cat sleeps. Small is the adjective, cat is the noun, and sleeps is the verb. Can you spot each one?
Your own sentence Now you try. Make a sentence with one of each. A noun, a verb, and an adjective. The happy bird sings. Say yours out loud.
Swap and giggle Try swapping the words for something silly. The enormous banana dances. Funny sentences help you remember the word types.
Name do describe Brilliant explorers! Nouns name, verbs do, adjectives describe. Spot all three in your book today. Bye from Bramble!
For grown-ups Teaching notes
- Nouns name things, verbs show action or state, adjectives describe nouns. Use physical actions to teach verbs and objects to teach nouns.
- A fun check: can you do it (verb), can you touch it (noun), can you add it before a noun (adjective)?
- Sentence building game: swap each word class and read out funny versions.
- Be careful: some words can be both noun and verb (a run, to run). Stick to clear examples at first.
Tip: pause the video after each picture, ask the child to say the answer, then press play.