How to teach adverbs - FREE WORKSHEETS
PRIMARY GRAMMAR UNIT 4 - ADVERBS
We breezed through our grammar units 1-3, nouns, adjectives and verbs. Who knew grammar could be so easy and fun right?
In my opinion, adverbs are far and away the trickiest to teach. They do not follow the consistent patterns that the first three parts of speech follow.
For example, an adverb can actually be a noun, but if it is used in a specific way, it becomes an adverb.
This can be so tricky to teach, but I broke down adverbs into bite size pieces with some tricks to help them stick with students!
I am sharing free activities right here on the blog so you can see how my strategies really work for teaching grammar to young children.
Let’s get started!
You can organize your units in a variety of ways, but using a three ring binder and page protectors make it so easy to see the sequential lesson plans, activities, worksheets, etc in order. Then you can quickly pull pages and make copies as needed.
You can use the activities in any order you wish, but I have also done all the planning and prep work for you if you follow my lesson outlines. 26 lessons are included in this unit.
I put the activities and lessons in a sequential, strategic order so it makes sense to students and flows easily.
Adverbs can be super tricky. I try to keep it very simple as this is an introduction to adverbs for primary children.
I explain that adverbs answers these questions:
HOW? WHEN? WHERE? HOW OFTEN?
Adverbs can technically get even more complicated than this but starting with this foundation is perfect for young students.
I take the same sentence and show how adding adverbs can change it to give it more details.
Thanks to my previous grammar units, students know that simple sentences just need a subject + verb.
A sentence can simply be: She swings.
Adverbs can be added to add more details to the verb. I tell students adverbs ADD to the VERB.
This activity page is the perfect way to introduce adverbs to students and get them thinking what question the adverb answers.
They read the sentence and color the correct bubble.
I display this poster as a constant reminder for students.
THIS VIDEO GIVES A LITTLE OVERVIEW OF ADVERBS
In lesson two, students get the anchor charts to help them remember common adverbs in each of the four categories.
This lesson build perfectly on previous grammar units and students will right away recognize the format and structure of these activities. This makes explaining directions and expectation a breeze!
So how do I teach students to find and identify adverbs?
Before students can find the adverb, I always have them start with the subject. Who or what is the sentence about?
Then, the find the verb. What does the subject do?
Once they have done this two steps, then they are ready to identify the adverb.
The first two steps are crucial! Don’t let students skip this.
This is why I have it in the directions to find the subject and verb first and underline/circle them.
Now we practice taking simple sentence and adding adverbs!
This activity page coordinates perfectly with the slides.
Tailor these activities to fit your needs!
No we are going to spend two lessons on each of the four specific kinds of adverbs.
Up first are the how adverbs. These are usually the -ly adverbs and easiest for students to remember.
There are four activity pages for each kind of adverb (except how often adverbs have three activity pages), and I just copy them front to back and then split them over the two days. I number them for you in the order I use them.
Repeated practice + scaffolding = success!
I follow this exact same format for all four types of adverbs. You’ll love how students pick up on the routine and you’ll send almost no time at all explaining what to do.
HERE ARE WHAT THE NEXT LESSONS LOOK LIKE:
Lesson 12 and 13 focus on sorting different types of adverbs.
Pocket chart cards are included, and to provide optional scaffolding they come in both color and black and white.
After we sort the words together, follow up with the cut/paste activity independently.
Now we are ready to review and reflect!
We do two of these cut and paste activities. I use the second one as a “quiz”.
I also review the slideshows and continue orally practice adding adverbs to sentences.
I do this same routine two days in a row with students. Repeated practice will yield mastery.
It is time to move on to generating adverbs and writing complete sentences using adverbs.
I love incorporating community helpers and writing about these helpers. The kids love this too!
Each lesson follows the same format, and seven community helpers are included!
They write one sentence for each kind of adverb - how, when, where and how often the people work in our community.
I include a word bank to help students spell words related to each job, and then you give them their adverb chart as well to provide scaffolding for students who need it.
I always try my best to anticipate what students need for scaffolding to be successful.
A lot of resources teach a concept once and then expect children to do the activities on their own with zero support.
This is a big reason I started writing my own curriculum in the first place.
I teach, we do activities together ad then when I ask students to complete activities on their own, I give them the tools they need to be successful.
Word banks, anchor charts, picture clues, etc. work so well!
It is time to go on an adverb hunt!
My students love these as we do them in the previous grammar units as well.
They come in color and black and white, and two different hunts are included in this unit.
These make wonderful activities to check for understanding or quizzes.
Children “hunt” through the picture and then write the adverbs in the correct column. What question does each word answer?
One of our last activities for the unit is the adverb + verb matching game.
The possibilities with this game are endless, and they help students truly understand our language and how to build sentences so much.
Play memory match, go fish, I have Who Has, pocket chart matching, etc.
We use them to orally create sentences first, and then move on to writing sentences with the coordinating recoding pages.
Because we created sentences together first using the verb and adverb, moving on to writing sentences with the pairs is seamless.
There are little picture icons on each set of dotted lines so students know exactly where to write each sentence.
I use these at the end of the unit because they are showing all the skills they have been learning by writing these complete sentences with adverbs on their own.
I absolutely love to see their confidence and progress.
They are so proud, and using adverbs becomes more natural fr them.
The last two lessons (lesson #25, #26) are color by adverb and find the adverb activities.
I copy these front to backend they are perfect for review or for a quiz.
ADVERBS CAN BE SO FUN!
Ready to get started with teaching adverbs?
Adverbs are tricky, but with this unit, grammar can be fun, engaging and concepts with actually stick with students.
"My students love to do these activities. It is so refreshing to buy a resource that I know will engage my students and be fun for them.”
“My students love learning with Keeping my Kinders Busy resources. The units are well explained, pictures engaging and lots of practice to reinforce the skills! Thank you!”
“I love all your grammar units. This one is also very VISUAL and broken into smaller units. Each unit is well laid out and engaging with a lot of practice with different activities. Thank you.”
