Year 4 · SPaG · Fronted adverbials and commas
Year 4 what is an adverbial? worksheet and PowerPoint
To say what an adverbial is and to tell adverbials of time, place, manner and frequency apart.
Adverbials
An adverbial is a word or phrase that tells you more about the verb. It can say when (time), where (place), how (manner) or how often (frequency). When an adverbial comes at the start of a sentence it is a fronted adverbial, and we put a comma after it.
| time | Later that day, we went home. |
|---|---|
| place | Behind the shed, we found a nest. |
| manner | Without a sound, the cat crept away. |
| frequency | Every Saturday, we visit the park. |
Examples
- We found a nest behind the shed. → Behind the shed, we found a nest.
- The dog barked every night. → Every night, the dog barked.
Key words
- adverbial
- a word or phrase that tells you more about a verb
- fronted adverbial
- an adverbial put at the start of a sentence
- time
- tells you when
- place
- tells you where
- manner
- tells you how
- frequency
- tells you how often
What is on the worksheet
Every sheet for this lesson has a short teaching box and 12 questions that get gradually harder: 8 fluency questions, then 4 reasoning questions that ask pupils to explain or choose. A writing challenge follows. The questions use the same styles as the key stage 2 grammar and punctuation test (circle, underline, tick, fill the gap, add punctuation, rewrite, explain). They are written for this website, not copied from past papers.
All the answers are on the last page of the same editable Word file. New questions are made every time, so you can print a different sheet for every group or for homework. The same sheet code always gives the same sheet.
Writing challenge: Write four sentences about your weekend. Use an adverbial of time, place, manner and frequency, one in each sentence, and underline them.
Pupil target: I can tell what an adverbial tells me.
The PowerPoint
A 20-slide lesson deck for the same lesson: a starter that revisits earlier learning, key words, an I do and a You do question on each slide with a countdown timer, answers that appear one click at a time, and a challenge. Download the what is an adverbial? PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 1 of 60 in the Year 4 SPaG scheme, in the block “Fronted adverbials and commas”.
Other lessons in this block
- Recognising fronted adverbials (1)
- Time adverbials
- Place adverbials
- Descriptive adverbials
- Recognising fronted adverbials (2)
- Using fronted adverbials
- Fronted adverbials together
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