Recommended Age: 5 years and onwards (may be younger depending on the child’s skills and experiences)
Purpose: To help the child become aware of the function of the adverb as a word that modifies or changes the action. The adverb game prepares the child for dramatic arts and prepares their mind for a deeper understanding of what is read
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, the adult must facilitate the initial exercise, once the child has been shown they may practice independently with the prepared slips
Prerequisites
- The child knows all sandpaper letters
- The child knows all sandpaper phonograms
- The child has a good repertoire of puzzle words they have memorized
- The child has played the ‘Adjective game’ and had experience using the grammar symbols
- The child has had many experiences with ‘The verb game’
- The child is able to read
Materials
* A tray containing a pair of scissors, a lead pencil, a red pencil and slips of paper
* Hand written slips prepared in advance
* Slips of paper which already have a verb written on them (see PDF)
* Prepared slips with adverbial commands (see PDF)
Preparation
- Prepare the hand written slips (verbs and adverbs)
Steps
- Invite the child
- Write the child a message for example “hug”
- Child reads the label and does the action
- Then say to the child “you did hug, but it wasn’t the way I wanted you to hug”
- Write the child another message, for example “quickly”
- Child reads the message and does the action (hug quickly)
- Invite the child to get the symbol box and symbolize the verb (red circle)
- Ask the child “show me that word that told you HOW I wanted you to give the hug”
- Introduce the small orange circle telling the child “this is the symbol we use for words that tell us HOW to do something” (adverb)
- The child may place the symbol above the adverb
- Introduce the child to the prepared slips
- Leave the child to work independently with the prepared slips
Variations
- None