When it comes to types of nouns, upper elementary students are ready to go past the basics of people, places, and things. They are ready to get into some of the nuances that separate the different types of nouns. In this blog post, we’ll break down five different types of nouns (common, proper, abstract, concrete, and collective) and look at a few creative ways to help your students understand them.
Types of Nouns: Definitions and Examples
Display a picture of a busy place that people visit, such as the scene of kids at a zoo above. As you introduce each of the types of nouns let kids identify examples of them in the picture.
1. Common Nouns
Common nouns are general names for people, places, things, or ideas. They are not capitalized unless they start a sentence.
- Examples: teacher, city, book, happiness
2. Proper Nouns
Proper nouns are specific names for people, places, or things and are always capitalized.
- Examples: Mr. Johnson, Paris, Charlotte’s Web
3. Abstract Nouns
Abstract nouns name ideas, qualities, or feelings—things that cannot be seen, touched, or measured.
- Examples: bravery, love, freedom, curiosity
4. Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns name things that can be experienced with the five senses.
- Examples: apple, dog, mountain, music
5. Collective Nouns
Collective nouns name groups of people, animals, or things. Although these nouns represent more than one of something, they follow the grammar rules of a singular noun.
- Examples: class, flock, team, bunch
Creative Activities for Teaching Nouns
Activity 1: Noun Ninjas
Get students moving with this interactive activity and add a little competitive fun too!
- Set the Rules: Explain that your students will move super-sneaky ninja style about the room looking or nouns. They want to be extra quiet and sneaky so they don’t give away any of their answers to the other noun ninjas.
- Supplies: Give each student a recording table with the 5 different types of nouns across the top, each as the header of its own column. You can premake these, or just have students prepare a chart on a piece of notebook paper.
- The Task: Students look around the room, finding examples of each type of noun type and record it on their chart, being careful not to give away any of their answers. Their goal is to find nouns that their classmates don’t find.
- The Competition: After an allotted amount of time, have all the ninjas return to their seats to see who found the most unique nouns, meaning no one else in the class recorded it. Have one student choose a type of noun and read all the examples of that type of noun. If another student has the same noun on their list, all students with that noun cross it off their list and it earns zero points (like Scattergories). Continue reading and crossing off nouns until each student has only nouns on their paper that no one else in the class has. Students will also cross off any nouns that they have written in the wrong category.
- Master Ninja: The student with the most correctly identified, unique nouns at the end of sharing time is the Noun Ninja champion.
Activity 2: Task Card Language Center
Set up a task card center where students can practice identifying and sorting types of nouns independently. You can make your own set or grab a done-for-you set of task cards here. Task card activities are particularly effective at providing practice for students to complete in pairs or alone while you work with small groups of students on other ELA topics.
The task cards in this set include work for plural and irregular nouns, pronouns, and noun and verb agreement along with tasks that involve the different types of nouns outlined above.
Extension Idea for Fast Finishers: Ask students to write their own sentences using the specific types of nouns and expmples used in the task cards.
If you want to celebrate a specific holiday while also practicing nouns, you can find a set of noun and pronoun task cards for every season here.
Activity 3: Noun Collage Posters
Let students flex their creative muscles by creating a visual representation of nouns. This one is great for small group projects.
- Provide Supplies: Give each group a large piece of paper and have them divide it inot 5 sections, labeling each section with one of the types of nouns. Each group will also need scissors, glue, and a stack of magazines.
- Create the Collage: Students cut out pictures or words representing different types of nouns and arrange them into sections on their paper.
- Share It: Once the projects are completed let each group and share their collages with the class.
Activity 4: Noun Thespians
This fun game helps students distinguish between abstract and concrete nouns. For abstract nouns, encourage them to think about facial expressions, gestures, and scenarios that might show the feeling or concept. For concrete nouns, they can mime using or interacting with the object.
- Prepare Noun Cards: Using your own word list or nouns listed below, write each abstract or concrete noun on a separate card.
- How to Play: Students draw a card and act out the noun without using words while their classmates guess. Discuss whether the noun is abstract or concrete after each round.
- Variation: Add proper, common, and collective nouns for an extra challenge.
Abstract Nouns
- Happiness
- Anger
- Friendship
- Fear
- Love
- Sadness
- Curiosity
- Confidence
- Surprise
- Bravery
- Honesty
- Hope
- Kindness
- Excitement
- Patience
Concrete Nouns
- Dog
- Ice cream
- Chair
- Pencil
- Balloon
- Tree
- Book
- Hat
- Pizza
- Clock
- Backpack
- Flower
- Bike
- Blanket
- Cupcake
Activity 5: A Collection of Collective Nouns
A singular noun that represents more than one of something??? This can be a mind-blowing discovery. Once you introduce the idea of collective nouns, your students will start recognizing them all around them. The most personal collective nouns for elementary school students are things they are part of like class, team, and family.
Start a collective noun discovery board or anchor chart that students can add to over the coming weeks as they come across new discoveries in their reading. Help students learn and remember collective nouns by recording the collective noun along with a picture or note that helps them remember what the group or collection is made up of. For example, students might draw a bird next to the word “flock” on the board.
Daily Spiral Review for Noun Skills
Looking for a way to keep noun skills fresh all year long? Check out this daily language review product! It includes quick, daily practice that spirals through essential grammar skills, including types of nouns. Perfect for morning work, centers, or homework, this resource helps ensure that your students are consistently reviewing and reinforcing what they’ve learned about types of nouns along with over 30 other ELA skills.
You can download free samples of each grade level, but if you’re ready for the easy button, follow the links below the grade level you teach:
3rd Grade Daily Language Reviews
4th Grade Daily Language Reviews
5th Grade Daily Language Reviews
By teaching the types of nouns with creative and engaging activities, you’ll help your students deepen their understanding of grammar while having fun.
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