Collective Nouns
In these four weeks we have identified nouns as a person, place, thing or idea, analyzed the difference between proper and common nouns as well as those that are abstract and concrete, and considered three types of compound nouns. This week we turn to collective nouns and for this study, Mrs. Heller offers another beautiful book for inspiration. After reading the pages in Merry-Go-Round that address collective nouns, turn to A Cache of Jewels and read it in its entirety. This book goes into great detail about the many different collective nouns in our language. A batch of bread, a cluster of grapes, and a bevy of beauties are just three of the many lovely examples given in this beautifully illustrated book.
After reading, ask your child to make a collective noun page in his Main Lesson Book. Perhaps he will be able to come up with examples of collective nouns on his own. If not, A Cache of Jewels is full of wonderful examples.
On another day use your child's written narrations or writing assignments for analysis. Review previous grammatical concepts by asking her to highlight all concrete nouns in one color and challenge her to use a collective noun in each paragraph, highlighting them in a different color. We have found that the children's narrations from the books we are reading throughout the week work well for this grammar exercise. An older child who is independently writing his narrations will benefit from analyzing his work. If your child is only narrating orally, type her narration at the keyboard and print it out to analyze together. Here is an example of Peter's oral narration of Elsa Beskow's The Sun Egg. You can click on the image to enlarge it and you will find that Peter circled the nouns in blue (pronouns were not discussed at this point) and colored in proper nouns in purple.
On the last page of A Cache of Jewels, the author explains that one collective noun can describe many groups and offers the examples of a host of angels, a host of monks, a host of thoughts, etc... Ask your child to think of one collective noun that can describe many groups and make another page in her Main Lesson Book.
Mrs. Heller goes on to explain that one group can be described by more than one collective noun. She offers the examples of a gam of whales, a mob of whales, a pod of whales, etc... Ask your child to think of one group that can be described by many different collective nouns and add one last collective noun page to the Main Lesson Book.
Up next week? Singular and Plural Nouns and a host of ways to make them.
Comments or Questions?