Year 5 · SPaG · Noun phrases
Year 5 recognising noun phrases worksheet and PowerPoint
To recognise noun phrases with adjectives and prepositional phrases, and to tell them from other groups of words.
Noun phrases
A noun phrase is a noun and the words that go with it. We can expand it with adjectives before the noun and a prepositional phrase after it. A good writer packs the detail into the noun phrase and keeps it concise.
| adjectives | before the noun: the tall, thin man |
|---|---|
| prepositional phrase | after the noun: the man in the doorway |
| both | the tall, thin man in the doorway waved |
| concise | one sentence with the detail inside the noun phrase, not three short sentences |
Examples
- The dog was brown. The dog was shaggy. The dog barked. → The brown, shaggy dog barked.
- I saw a bird with a yellow beak.
Key words
- noun phrase
- a noun with the words that go with it
- expanded noun phrase
- a noun phrase with extra detail added
- adjective
- a word that describes a noun
- prepositional phrase
- starts with a preposition: in the garden
- concise
- short and clear, with no wasted words
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: Find five sentences with an expanded noun phrase in a book. Copy each one, underline the noun phrase and circle the noun in it.
Pupil target: I can find a noun phrase in a sentence.
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 recognising noun phrases PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 28 of 43 in the Year 5 SPaG scheme, in the block “Noun phrases”.
Other lessons in this block
- Expanded noun phrases
- Creating concise noun phrases
- Writing concise noun phrases
- Using noun phrases
- Concise noun phrases together
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