Noun or Verb Anchor Chart and a freebie!

It might come naturally to an adult native speaker of English that some words act as both verbs and nouns. Of course, the context will tell you the difference. That's easy for you to see.

Now, think about a young child and/or an ELL student. They might have trouble understanding that a word like "play" can be a noun ("I watched a wonderful play"), but also a verb ("Let's play outside").

Helping them navigate the world of multiple meaning words and parts of speech is not an easy task, but it's a crucial one in getting them to succeed in a world where people are constantly turning nouns into verbs ("Friend me on FB"), and verbs into nouns ("I've only got one like on IG").

If you're introducing nouns and verbs to your students or if you're reviewing those two parts of speech, here's an idea that will get your kids to think about the multiple meaning of words on a daily or weekly basis.

Use an interactive "Noun or Verb" anchor chart like the one below.
Read on to learn how you can use it in your classroom.

Is it a noun or a verb? It can be both! Use this interactive anchor chart to get your students working with the two most important parts of speech: nouns and verbs

1. Once a day (or a week), write a word on a post-it and attach it to the top bubble.
2. Have students write sentences (on two pieces of post-its) in which the focus word acts as a noun and a verb.
3. Gather all the post-its and "shuffle" them.
4. Pick one post-it and read the sentence on it, and have students tell you if the word is a noun or a verb.
5. Attach the post-it on the verb bubble or the noun bubble of the anchor chart.
6. Go through as many sentences as time allows. If you change the focus word once a week, you'll probably be able to go through all the sentences. For example, if you have 20 students, go through 4 sentences a day.

If your students are struggling with the concept, you might have them come up with sentences in pairs or small groups.
You might also brainstorm the sentences together as a class when first introducing the activity, and later move on to the procedure described above.

Sometimes it's hard to remember words that can act as both verbs and nouns, so feel free to use some of the words you'll find in my FREE Noun or Verb No-Prep Printable Worksheets. You can use the printables as pre or post-assessment as well.

And if you happen to be looking for more fun ways to practice nouns and verbs, be sure to check out my Noun or Verb Scoot - 2 sets of 35 Task Cards.

And I'm linking up with the grammar queen Deb Hanson for her Anchors Away Linky Party.
Be sure to check out her anchor charts. They're incredible!

Thanks for reading!