Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, K-3

In the BrainPOP ELL movie Five Dogs (L1U1L4), Moby is walking dogs in the park. As he tries to keep track of all the different dogs, students are introduced to simple adjectives and prepositions of place. This lesson plan, adaptable for grades K-8, invites students to use adjectives in simple sentences with the verb to be.

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Students will:

  1. Describe objects using adjectives in simple sentences with the verb to be.

Vocabulary:

Adjectives: large, small, fat, skinny, full, empty
Colors: red, yellow, blue, black, white, orange, green, purple, brown
Sentence constructions: The dog is ___________. It’s a __________ dog.

Preparation:

Cut out the four images.

Lesson Procedure:

  1. Check It. To spot check understanding of adjective placement, pause the movie Five Dogs (L1U1L4) at any point for students to describe what they see.
  2. Describe It. After watching the segment about Adjectives in the Grammar movie from Five Dogs (L1U1L4), practice the two kinds of sentences used to describe things. Divide the class into two teams. Using the Images provided of the four dogs, a student from Team 1 says, “The dog is large.” Then a student from Team 2 says, “It’s a large dog.” Continue with the other three images. Then ask students to make up their own sentences and continue the exercise. Have students add a second adjective to their sentences, for example, “It’s a large, white dog.” After several sentences, ask students to explain which adjectives come first by identifying the pattern (adjectives describing size come first).
  3. Draw It. Together with the class, make two lists on the board of nouns and adjectives that they have learned. Students can use the Unit Lists of the BrainPOP ELL Word Lists to see words by lesson. Have each student fold a piece of paper into four quadrants and create an image like the Four Dogs image provided. Working in pairs, one student chooses four adjective-noun combinations, such as a tall tree, and the other student draws them. Then they switch. All of the images can now be cut up and used in various activities, such as sorting the pictures by nouns and comparing the different adjectives used to describe them.

Related Movies
BrainPOP Movie:
Adjectives

BrainPOP Jr. Movies:
Adjectives and Adverbs