Parts Of Speech (Nouns, Verbs) Study Notes

In English, words play different roles in a sentence. These roles are called "Parts of Speech." For 2nd graders, two very important parts of speech are Nouns and Verbs. Let's learn about them!

🧠 Understanding Nouns

A noun is a word that names a person, place, animal, or thing. Nouns tell us "who" or "what" we are talking about.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Persons (People)

• teacher
• mom
• friend
• baby

📍 Places

• school
• park
• home
• store

🐾 Animals

• dog
• cat
• bird
• fish

🧸 Things

• book
• table
• ball
• toy

💡 Common Nouns vs. Proper Nouns

Nouns can be common or proper.

📌 Common Nouns are general names for people, places, animals, or things. They are NOT capitalized unless they start a sentence.

• boy, girl, city, month, river

📌 Proper Nouns are specific names for people, places, animals, or things. They ALWAYS start with a capital letter.

• John, Sarah, London, October, Nile River

Examples of Common and Proper Nouns

Common Noun	Proper Noun
boy	Tom
city	Paris
dog	Max
month	July

🔢 Singular and Plural Nouns

Nouns can be singular (one) or plural (more than one).

📌 Most nouns become plural by adding -s at the end.

• one cat → two cats
• one book → three books

📌 Some nouns that end with s, x, z, ch, sh add -es to become plural.

• one bus → two buses
• one box → three boxes

Singular and Plural Noun Examples

Singular (One)	Plural (More than One)
apple	apples
chair	chairs
fox	foxes
watch	watches

🏃 Understanding Verbs

A verb is a word that shows an action or tells what someone or something is doing. Verbs are the "doing" words in a sentence.

🤸 Action Verbs

These verbs show movement or activity. They tell us what the subject of the sentence is doing.

• run
• jump
• eat
• sleep
• read
• sing
• play
• write

📝 Verbs in Sentences

Verbs help complete a sentence by showing the action.

• The dog runs fast. (What does the dog do? runs)
• I read a book. (What do I do? read)
• Birds sing in the morning. (What do birds do? sing)

🕰️ Verbs and Time (Simple Past and Present)

Verbs can also tell us when an action happened: now (present) or before (past).

📌 For many verbs, you add -ed to show the action happened in the past.

• Today, I walk. Yesterday, I walked.
• Today, they play. Yesterday, they played.

Present and Past Tense Verbs

Present (Happening Now)	Past (Happened Before)
jump	jumped
walk	walked
talk	talked
paint	painted