Before you teach — read this first
Grade 1 · Lesson 13 — Finding nouns inside a sentence
U1 · Level One — Parts of Speech · Nouns (3 of 4) · 10–15 minutes · 18 slides ·
Launch → I do → We do → You do → Closure
The grammar behind this lesson — read this before you teach it.NounsWhat it is. A noun names something — a person, place, thing, or idea. It is the only kind of word that can be the thing a sentence is about.
Why our test works. 'Can I put the in front of it?' works because the is a determiner, and determiners in English attach to nouns and to nothing else. *The table* is fine; the ran, the quickly, the and are not. So the test is not a trick — it is asking whether the word behaves the way only nouns behave.
Leans on. Knowing that a sentence is about something. If a child cannot yet find what the sentence is about, the noun test has nothing to hold on to.
Watch for. It fails on names and on some abstract nouns — we do not say the Sarah or the courage in every sentence. Tell the class the test finds most nouns, and names are nouns too because they name a person.
What this lesson is
Lesson 3 of 4 on nouns. The single idea is: A sentence has nouns in it, and I can find every one. The tool the children are handed is the question “Can I put “the” in front of it?” — by the end of the topic that question, not the teacher, settles every case. Held constant today: Starts with one noun per sentence and moves to two within the lesson — the book does not linger here and neither should we. The worked example is built on Look at the bus., ringing bus.
Why it matters — say this in your own words, about ten seconds.
“The better we know words, the better we understand the Qur'an.”
A different reason every lesson, on purpose. It is not on a slide and it
is not a script — if you have a better reason today, use yours. What should land is the
idea, not a sentence they can recite.
Recall — sixty seconds, before anything new
Retrieve: What a word is + What a sentence is · What a sentence is. Ask for it before you introduce anything, take the answers from boards rather than from hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on. This is the middle of the launch: context, then this, then why it matters. Only what today leans on — a minute spent retrieving something unrelated costs the same and buys nothing, and the child who cannot recall the prerequisite is the one you will lose in the I-do.
How it goes
- Sixty seconds of retrieval opens it: “Yesterday: the spot test — “the” in front. Quick — one together.” Same language as when it was taught, a new example. If the class cannot do this, that is today's real work — stop and reteach.
- Ten seconds on why it matters — “The better we know words, the better we understand the Qur'an.” Your words, not those; it is a different reason every lesson so what lands is the idea rather than a sentence they can recite.
- You name the one idea: A sentence has nouns in it, and I can find every one. Then the plan — what it is, the question we ask, and that we will find them together.
- Then you do one yourself, on screen, one click per move: Look at the bus. · the question · ring bus · name it a noun. Do it exactly the way you want it done — this is the task they are about to do on their boards, not an easier one.
- You build the same thing on the board and leave it up for nouns. The four steps are identical in every lesson of this unit — sentence, question, test, answer — so the children read the method rather than the layout, and today's board shows Look at the bus. still marked when they start work.
- The We-do runs 4 items on whiteboards — To all little trees we are loyal., Adjectives, Poodle recalled, modify nouns or pronouns., cat, dog. You are scanning for who applies the question and who is guessing from meaning; those look identical on a right answer and completely different on a wrong one.
- Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves — Sheet and pencil · Ask the question on every item · Find the noun in each one. Then they work alone, with the same worked example printed at the head of their sheet.
- Close on Gradually he saw that they were adjectives—three! — an item they have not met, so it measures rather than reminds — then the line they leave with: “A noun names something.”
- Watch for: Calls the word after “the” a noun when it is an adjective — “the red…” — The spot test is positional, and an adjective sits in the same slot. If you see it: “The red WHAT? It has not finished. Keep going to the naming word.” (Remedial sheet 07.)