6 Ways to Keep Learning Adjectives Fun
Not sure how to teach adjectives?
The nerd in me is going to come out while saying this, but⦠I used to geek out when teaching my students adjectives!
Of course, there are tons of ways to keep your students engaged and interacting with one another while learning adjectives, but learning adjectives can really bring out creativity in students and thatβs what makes teaching them so fun!
I want to share with you some quick tips that really helped my students learn adjectives, as well as 6 other fun activities you can use in your classroom!
Quick Tips for How to Teach Adjectives
There are 3 simple questions that I always reiterated to my students while they were learning adjectives: What kind? Which one? How many?
Almost always an adjective can be identified in a sentence by answering one of these three questions.
My other tip before we get into the activity ideas is to be sure that your students have a solid understanding of nouns and verbs prior to starting your adjectives unit.
This is going to make your life AND theirs so much easier!
In fact, as your students are learning adjectives, I encourage you to continue incorporating nouns and verbs as much as you can to really keep that understanding clear.
For example, have your students identify the noun and verb first in any sentences you work with before searching for adjectives.
You may start to feel like a broken record and canβt get out of your nouns and verbs unit, but doing this will make learning adjectives much clearer.
Have your students circle nouns, underline verbs, and then place boxes around any adjectives. Or color code them by parts of speech!
Interactive Notebook for Adjectives
Now for the fun stuff! π
This interactive notebook covers it all – Why we use adjectives in our writing, sorting adjectives based upon color, taste, feel, look, size, sound, and smell, identifying adjectives in sentences and the nouns they are describing, and even a brainstorming chart for coming up with an adjective for each letter of the alphabet!
This is a fun and hands-on way if you want to know how to teach adjectives.
My interactive notebooks always come with answer keys, as well as multiple levels of differentiation, so you can use these activities during whole-class, small group, or individual work time.
You can find a better preview of the notebook here!
Google Classroom Adjectives
If youβre looking for something totally digital to add to your unit, this digital resource can be used on Google Classroom and Google Drive and comes with 7 different activities for learning adjectives.
Listing adjectives you want in a friend, rewriting sentences by using adjectives, and brainstorming adjectives that correlate with our five senses are just to name a few!
The activities in this resource are also teacher editable, making them reusable again and again. π
And of course, an answer key!
Interested? Check it out here!
Digital Mystery Pixel Adjectives
My final digital resource to share with you is one of my favorites, and will be your students, too! π
This set of digital mystery pixels comes with 5 different pixels and answer keys – ladybug, goat, guinea pig, dog, and panda.
Some of the skills addressed include identifying adjectives in given sentences and identifying if certain underlined words are adjectives or not!
If youβre unfamiliar with mystery pixels, as your students answer questions correctly about adjectives, a mystery picture appears!
I always find these to be super motivating and engaging for students.Β
They love trying to guess what it is thatβs getting revealed.
You can find a video preview of how the pixels work by going here!
Not sure what a digital mystery pixel is? Leave your deets below to get a FREE digital mystery pixel sent immediately to your inbox!
Create Your Own Restaurant Menu
To me, one of the most important concepts for teaching grammar is being able to incorporate life skills.
Itβs one of those subjects that as students get older, they donβt always feel itβs applicable to their daily lives.
One way to create a real-world experience when learning adjectives is by having your students create their own restaurant menu!
Start by having your students decide what kind of restaurant theyβll be owning – Italian, Chinese, American, Greek –
Whatever type of food they want to βserve.β
Then start making categories for their menus just as youβd see in real life.
Drinks, appetizers, kidsβ meals, entrees, and desserts could all be options or narrow it down if you prefer.
After your students have identified what they want to serve, theyβll need to write descriptions for their items.
For example, a hamburger and fries could be described as a deliciously cooked beef patty topped with a red tomato, grilled onions, and spicy mayo.
After your students have created their descriptions, have them go back and underline the adjectives!
You can even choose to have your students present their restaurant and menu ideas to the rest of the class. π
Bingo for Individual Centers
A whole class game of Bingo is always super fun, but if youβre looking for something a little more self-regulated you can incorporate Bingo into centers.
Create multiple Bingo cards from an online free generator using nouns, verbs, and adjectives as your 3 main parts of speech to be put in the squares.
Following this, your list of words will be a mixture of nouns, verbs, and adjectives – school, yellow, fast, dance – you get the point!
Students will choose a word card from their individual deck and decide if itβs a noun, verb, or adjective.
Theyβll then place a Bingo chip on whichever part of speech it is and try to create a Bingo!
You can have students partner up to help with self-checking the cards.
Your main focus may be on adjectives, but if your students can build upon their knowledge of nouns and verbs at the same time theyβre learning adjectives, the easier identifying parts of speech will become. π
Self Portraits
Lastly, you can totally incorporate learning adjectives into an art lesson or social/emotional learning!
If youβre needing an art project, have each student draw a self-portrait on a large piece of construction paper.
Following this, have your students come up with adjectives that describe themselves and write them around the portrait.
Or, have your students write positive adjectives on other studentsβ portraits to create a sense of community in your room!Β
This is a great opportunity to talk about using more creative adjectives than just βcool,β βawesome,β and βamazing.β π
There are so many ways to incorporate real-world skills when learning adjectives while still having fun and getting to be creative.
All your teammates will be asking you how to teach adjectives!Β
I canβt wait for you to rock your adjective unit this year!
Looking for more grammar blog posts?
- Digital games and activities for subject and predicate
- How to make teaching grammar fun
- How to teach common and proper nouns
- The 4 Rules to live by when teaching singular & plural nouns