Skip to content
LessonPrint

Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts

A 40-minute Grade 1 lesson on the parts of a sentence — nouns, verbs and adjectives — and on making them agree.

Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts is a free 40-minute Grade 1 English lesson plan for Common Core standard L.1.1 — use nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns and conjunctions correctly. It is timed across 5 sections, gives the exact wording to use where the wording carries the meaning, names 3 misconceptions with the teaching move that addresses each, and ends with an exit ticket and a printable worksheet with its answer key.

Grade:
Grade 1
Length:
40 minutes
Standard:
L.1.1

Grade 1 · Language

L.1.1

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Objective

Students will be able to build a complete sentence with a noun and a matching verb, and add an adjective in front of the noun.

Students are successful when they can

  • Points to the noun and the verb in a four-word sentence such as "The little frog hops."
  • Chooses "runs" after "The dog" and "run" after "The dogs," and reads the sentence aloud to check.
  • Puts an adjective directly before its noun: "the muddy dog," not "the dog muddy."

What you need

  • Word cards in three colors: blue nouns (dog, frog, girl, cat), red verb pairs (runs/run, hops/hop, sleeps/sleep, sings/sing), yellow adjectives (little, muddy, sleepy, red)
  • A pocket chart with a "The" card, an "s" card and a full-stop card
  • The printable practice sheet linked at the end of this plan

The lesson

Warm-up — sort the colors

5 min
  1. Turn over twelve cards one at a time: dog, frog, girl, cat, runs, hops, sleeps, sings, little, muddy, sleepy, red.
  2. For each one ask a single question: "Could you point at it, could you do it, or does it tell you what something is like?" Stick it in one of three unlabeled columns.
  3. When all twelve are placed, add the labels: naming words are nouns, doing words are verbs, describing words are adjectives.
  4. Test one with the body. "Everybody, hop." They can. "Everybody, dog." They laugh — dog is something you point at, so it stays a noun.
“A noun is something you could point at. A verb is something you could do. An adjective tells us what the noun is like.”

Teach — build, then break

13 min
  1. Build in the pocket chart: The | dog | runs | . Read it together. Ask "Which word could you point at?" (dog) and "Which word could you do?" (runs).
  2. Put the "s" card after "dog" so it reads "The dogs runs." Read it aloud slowly and stop. Ask "Does that sound right?" Most of the room will pull a face.
  3. Swap "runs" for its partner card "run." Read "The dogs run." together. Ask where the s went. Fish for: "It moved from runs to dogs."
  4. Write both on the board, one under the other: "The dog runs." and "The dogs run." Circle the s in each. One s in each sentence — it just changes house.
  5. Repeat with frog/frogs and hops/hop, but this time the class tells you which verb card to pick before anyone reads.
  6. Now add "muddy." Put it at the end: "The dog runs muddy." Then after the noun: "The dog muddy runs." Then before it: "The muddy dog runs." Read all three. Ask which one sounds like English. The adjective sits just before the noun it describes.
  7. Finish by letting the class call the colors to build "The sleepy girl sings." — yellow, blue, red.
“Change the noun and listen to the verb. One dog runs. Two dogs run. The s moves house — it never lives in both words at once.”

Guided practice — build four

12 min
  1. Each pair gets a card set and builds four sentences, each with one adjective, one noun and one verb, for example "The little frog hops."
  2. For each sentence they add the "s" card to the noun and must swap the verb card to match: "The little frogs hop."
  3. One partner reads aloud; the other listens and says "match" or "no match." Then they swap jobs.
  4. Circulate and ask "Where is your s, and why is it there?" The answer to listen for: "There are lots of frogs, so the s is on frogs, not on hop."
  5. Copy one mismatched sentence onto the board, without naming the pair, and fix it with the class.
“Read it to your partner. If your ear says "ouch," go and find the s.”

Independent practice

8 min
  1. Students complete the sentence-parts page: sorting words into noun, verb and adjective columns, then choosing the word that fits each sentence.
  2. Read the instructions aloud and do the first word together using the point-or-do test.
  3. Sit with any child who sorted a verb into the noun column in the warm-up and run the test with them on each word.

Close

2 min
  1. Write "The two cats sleeps on the rug." Ask what is wrong and how to fix it.
  2. Fish for "Two cats sleep — cats already has the s." Then ask for one adjective to add: "The two fat cats sleep on the rug."

What goes wrong, and why

Each of these is a reasoning error rather than carelessness. The fix addresses the reasoning.

Writes "The dogs runs." with an s on both the noun and the verb.

Why: They have learned that more than one means adding an s, and apply it to every word in the sentence that is about the dogs. It is a sensible generalization of the plural rule, just applied one word too far.

Fix: Write "The dog runs." over "The dogs run." and circle each s. Say "The s moves house." Then have them read their own sentence with a finger on each s and count: there should be one.

Puts the adjective after the noun: "I have a ball red."

Why: The describing word was the last card added, so it is placed last. For some children the home language (Spanish, French, Arabic) puts the adjective after the noun, so they are following a real rule — a different language's.

Fix: Treat it as English word order, not as a mistake in thinking. Build "a red ball" with cards, let the child move the card themselves, and read both versions aloud. Collect three examples from class books, such as "the big bad wolf."

Sorts "jumps" and "sleeps" into the noun pile because "they are words."

Why: Noun was the first label they learned and has come to mean "a word." They sort the card on its own, by how it looks, rather than by the job it does.

Fix: Ask the job question every time: "Could you point at it, or could you do it?" Have the child act it out. If their body can do it, it goes in the verb column.

If they are not there yet

  • Use only blue and red cards, with each verb pair clipped together, so the child chooses between "runs" and "run" rather than from twelve cards.
  • Put a small drawing on every noun card so the "could you point at it?" test can be done with a finger.
  • Give the frame "The ___ ___ ." with one dot or two dots above the noun slot, so the child counts dots to decide one or many before choosing the verb.

If they finish early

  • Swap the noun for a pronoun: "The dogs run" becomes "They run" and "The girl sings" becomes "She sings." Ask which pronouns take the verb with the s.
  • Write the sentence about yesterday: "The dog ran" and "The dogs ran." Discover that the past tense has no s to move, and explain why.
  • Copy one sentence from the class read-aloud book and underline its noun, verb and adjective in the three card colors.

Exit ticket

Finish the sentence with runs or run: "The dogs ___ fast." Then add a describing word to tell us which dogs.

What to look for: "The big dogs run fast." — run, with the adjective before dogs. "The dogs runs" means the one-s rule is not yet heard: read the pair aloud with them. "The dogs big run" means the adjective is placed in the order it was thought of: rebuild it with cards.

Printable practice for L.1.1

Free to print and copy, answer key included. Each sheet can generate a fresh set of problems for a retake.

Questions about Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts

How long does the Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts lesson take?

40 minutes, split across 5 timed sections: warm-up 5 min, teach 13 min, guided practice 12 min, independent practice 8 min, close 2 min. The minutes are stated per section and add up to the stated length, so the plan can be cut or extended at a section boundary rather than abandoned halfway.

Which standard does Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts teach?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1 — L.1.1, Language for Grade 1: “Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.” In plain terms, use nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns and conjunctions correctly.

What do I need to teach this lesson?

Word cards in three colors: blue nouns (dog, frog, girl, cat), red verb pairs (runs/run, hops/hop, sleeps/sleep, sings/sing), yellow adjectives (little, muddy, sleepy, red), a pocket chart with a "The" card, an "s" card and a full-stop card and the printable practice sheet linked at the end of this plan. Everything listed is either ordinary classroom equipment or a free printable from this site — there is nothing to buy and nothing to prepare beyond photocopying.

What mistakes should I expect in this lesson?

Three, each a reasoning error rather than carelessness: writes "The dogs runs." with an s on both the noun and the verb; puts the adjective after the noun: "I have a ball red." and sorts "jumps" and "sleeps" into the noun pile because "they are words.". The plan gives the thinking behind each one and the teaching move that addresses the thinking rather than the symptom.

How do I know whether the lesson worked?

The exit ticket asks: “Finish the sentence with runs or run: "The dogs ___ fast." Then add a describing word to tell us which dogs.” "The big dogs run fast." — run, with the adjective before dogs. "The dogs runs" means the one-s rule is not yet heard: read the pair aloud with them. "The dogs big run" means the adjective is placed in the order it was thought of: rebuild it with cards. That tells you whether the class needs a reteach or a thirty-second conversation before you plan tomorrow.

Is there a worksheet to go with Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts?

Yes — 1 printable L.1.1 worksheet, linked at the end of the plan and free like the rest of the site. Each one comes with an answer key and 25 versions, so the practice after the lesson can be a different paper on every desk.

Is Nouns, Verbs and Sentence Parts free to use?

Yes. The plan, its printables and their answer keys are free to read, print and photocopy for your own class, with no account and no email capture. It was last reviewed on October 8, 2026. Please do not resell it or republish it as your own.

Last reviewed 2026-10-08. Aligned to L.1.1 of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.