Basic Parts of Speech

A noun names a person, place, thing or idea.

Which one of these words is a noun?

• pickle

• dance

• pretty

• jump

Answer explanation

A pickle is a thing, so it is a noun.

A verb names an action.

Which of the following words is a verb?

• sat

• hat

• cat

• bat

Answer explanation

A verb names an action, so sat is the verb in this sentence.

A pronoun replace a noun in a sentence.

Choose the words to complete the following sentence.

Karen loves chocolate ice cream. ______ is ____ favorite flavor

• it, her

• they, he

• jump, of

• we, love

Answer explanation

In this sentence, the pronoun it takes the place of ice cream.

Her takes the place of Karen.

What is the nouns in the following sentence?

The dog chewed the shoe.

• dog, shoe

• chewed, the

• kitten, toy

• he, she

An adjective is a word that describes something.

What is the adjective in the following sentence.

I touched a hairy spider.

• touched

• a

• hairy

• spider

• I

Check all adjectives.

• lobster

• blue

• dances

• sweet

• ten

Answer explanation

Don't forget that numbers and colors can act as nouns depending on where they are in a sentence.

I like red. (red is noun in this sentence)

I like the red flower. (red is an adjective in this sentence)

Jake did not want to play basketball, because he thought _____ was boring.

What is the adjective in this sentence?

I ate the salty popcorn at the movies

• movies

• popcorn

• salty

• ate

Answer explanation

Salty is the adjective because it describes popcorn.

Rate your understanding of parts of speech.

• Awesome!

  I feel like I could teach it to someone else.

• Good!

  I am feeling confident.

• Okay.

  I am starting to get it.

• Not good.

  I don't really understand.

Write a sentence that contains a noun, a verb and and adjective.