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Recommended Age: 4 and ½ years and onwards 

Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, the adult must present the initial exercise, after the child has been shown they may work independently with the prepared slips 

Prerequisites 

• The child must be able to read (you may provide assistance) 
• The child must know the common puzzle words (the, a) 

• The child should know all of the sand paper letters  
• The child should know all or be working towards knowing all sand paper phonograms 

Materials 

* Either a farm with farm animals or a dolls house with dolls and furniture 

* A container for the objects 

* A group of objects that are in some way related (For example farm animals) 

* There are several of each type of which can be distinguished from each other by an adjective (for example a brown, black and white horse of different sizes) 

* Writing tray with blank slips of paper, pencil and scissors 

* Grammar symbols (see PDF) 

* Box or basket to keep the grammar symbols (you may like to keep the symbols which are the same together with a paper clip or elastic band) 

* Prepared slips of paper for farm or social environment for independent work in another box (see list) 

Preparation 

• Make the grammar symbols (see PDF) by printing, cutting out and laminating the symbols. Place the symbols in a box or basket 

• Place the strips of paper, pencil and scissors on the writing tray 

Steps 

• Invite the child to set up the farm or the doll’s house any way they please 
• Once the child has finished invite the child to their table to do an activity, bring the writing tray and the symbols to the table 
• Take the writing pencil, demonstrating correct pencil grip and write a label for the child for example ‘the horse’ 

• Invite the child to read the label and bring the object 
• When the child brings the horse say to the child “this is a horse, but it wasn’t the horse that I wanted” 
• Write another label for the child for example ‘brown’, the child reads the label 
• Invite the child to return the original horse and bring the brown horse to the table 
• Look at the labels with the child and read “brown”, “the horse” 

• Draw the child’s attention to the ways which the label ‘brown’ may be transposed with the label ‘the horse’ (brown the horse AND the horse brown) 
• Let the child read both ways discovering they do not make sense 
• Cut the label ‘the horse’ so that the words ‘the’ and ‘horse’ are now separate 
• Invite the child to now put the labels in the correct order (the brown horse) 
• Now say to the child “show me the word that told you what to bring?” 

• When the child shows you the noun (horse), show the child the symbols you have made, letting the child know to place the large black triangle above the word ‘horse’ 
• The child may now place a small light blue triangle above the word ‘the’ (the article) and place a medium dark blue triangle above the word ‘brown’ (the adjective)
   

Variations 

• The child may write their own labels 
• The child may look for these words in any printed texts (poems, songs, books etc) 

Notes 

• This exercise helps the child become aware of the function of the adjective as a descriptive word. Through this activity the child becomes aware of the position of the adjective between the article and the noun