Teaching Ideas for Using Pond Life Plurals - A spelling game that teaches adding plural suffixes to words

Make choices about how to change a base word to make it into a plural.

Phonics Learning Opportunities

To know the rules for making singular words plural.

To practise applying these rules.

Organisation

Whole class, small group, 1:1.

Once children are familiar with this game they could play independently.

Teaching ideas

Click on Start. The frog in the centre of the screen will lift up to reveal a base word. Encourage children to read the word in their heads first. Read the word out loud as a class. Check that all children know what the word means. Explain that this is the word for one of those things. What would the word be if there were more than one of those things. Enourage children to say the word out loud.

Ask the children to think carefully about what we would have to do to turn this base word into the plural. Encourage children to talk in pairs. Ask them to make sure that they don't just say their preferred choice but encourage them to explain why they think that choice is right.

Ask all children to express which they think is the correct option. You could do this by asking them to point in the direction of the appropriate lily pad or number the pads and ask children to hold up that many fingers or develop actions to represent each of the choices. Click on the pad that the majority of children chose and discuss the feedback that is given.

Gradually build up children's understanding of the rules for adding plural suffixes.

Most words - add s

Words ending in a hissing, buzzing and shushing sound - add es

Words ending in f or fe (but not ff) - change the f to a v and add es

Words ending in y - change the y to an i and add es

Extensions

As children become more familiar with the spelling of these words give them lots of opportunities for using them in their own writing. Encourage them to practise writing them in handwriting and race on whiteboards to see how many times they can correctly spell one of the words on a whiteboard in one minute.

To revise the application of these rules, encourage children to play Planetary Plurals.

Play Interactive Pond Life Plurals Game