Good, better, best! Have you tried our Comparative Adjectives or Superlative Adjectives grammar lessons with your young English learners yet? (more…)
superlatives
Practicing Superlatives: Make Your Own Animal Records Book
For a bedtime story last night, my son chose a book that he had picked out at the library: The Natural History Museum Book of Animal Records by Mark Carwardine. We were proud to find out that we knew quite a few animal records already, such as the longest migration for a mammal (gray whale), or the most dangerous shark to humans (bull shark). We laughed ourselves silly in the Birds section, where we found records for the worst walker (hummingbird), the most bossy (kea), and even the strangest nesting material (mockingbirds in Ecuador snatch hair from passing tourists).
If your students are practicing superlatives with this week’s lesson plan, why not create your own Animal Records book? Include the most amazing facts you can find in the library or on the Internet. (more…)
Spelling Rules for Superlative Adjectives
What’s the best way for students to learn English spelling?
Spelling in English is very difficult to learn. There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, but there isn’t a one-to-one spelling/pronunciation system like there is with some other languages. For example, the /i/ sound can be spelled as “ee,” “ie,” “ei,” “ea,” or “e” in English (cheese, thief, receive, leaf, impede). Even though English spelling involves a lot of memorization, there are some patterns and rules that can help. Today, let’s focus on the spelling rules for superlative adjectives.
Here are four easy spelling rules for adding -est to the end of adjectives. For more examples and practice, check out our Spotlight lesson this week on Superlative Adjectives. (more…)
Practicing Superlatives During the Olympics
Who’s the Best?
The Winter Olympics is coming up in Sochi, Russia (Feb 7–23). Are you prepared to be inspired? My own kids always end up competing more when the Olympics is on. They want to jump the highest, sing the loudest, skate the fastest, and stay up the latest. There are usually several different venues at our house. (Paper snowboarding, anyone?) Does this happen in your classroom? Don’t be surprised if the Olympics inspires your students to aim a little higher! (Who sharpened their pencil the longest?)
Reviewing Superlatives
With the Olympics only a few weeks away, it’s the perfect time of year to practice superlatives with your students. It is also a fantastic time to try this week’s Spotlight lesson plan, Achievements and Records. In this lesson, students practice using the simple past tense in conjunction with superlative adjectives. After you’ve tried this lesson plan (or if you’ve recently introduced superlative adjectives with Tanya’s handy chart), try this fun review activity, and consider holding a “superlative-inspired” Student Olympics at your school.
First, brainstorm all of the Winter Olympic sports. Here is the full list in case your students miss any: (more…)
Superlative Adjectives
Adjectives describe people, places, and things in English. What happens when we want to compare a lot of nouns at once? We use superlative adjectives! If you tried or will try our lesson of the week, Achievements & Records, then you might want to review superlative adjectives with your students. These adjectives are very common when deciding who is the best at a certain activity!
