Grammar: Irregular Plurals

Grammar: Irregular Plurals

Aim
•Develop the chilcfren’s knowledge of irregular plurals.

 

 

 

I.

•Introduce the idea that some singular words make

s:timulw

nudtus

alwnnus

their plural by removing the final letters <us> before adding <i>. These words have a Latin origin.

sc;,..,.. .. ….,…

octopus

platypus

wus

Introduction
•Remind the children that most plurals are regular because they can be made by following a few simple rules.
•Write some words on the board and ask the children to say the plurals:

Mtllf _lll..,.•platlll.,…l’Mlt-• …,.”‘ n-•–trlll,awnofNdiil-
.n l’t\Wi tO HWjCool. —

– Flowers, pencils, cats, books, cars: most regular

__.

plurals are made by adding <s>.
– Stitches, ashes, kisses, quizzes, taxes: nou ns ending

in <ch>, <sh>, <s>, <z> or <x> are made by adding <es>.

,

.,_.

– Tomatoes, potatoes , torpedoes, volcanoes / hippos, pianos, photos, studios: nouns ending in <o> are usually

made by adding <es>, except when the word is foreign, abbreviated or has a vowel before the <o>, when <s> is added.

__.

– Berries, spies, cries, cities, copies, ponies: nouns ending in a consonant plus <y> replace <y> with <i> before adding <es> .
– Toys, ways, guys, monkeys: nouns ending in a vowel plus <y> simply add <S>.

Main Point
•Remind the children that some plurals are irregular or tricky because they do not follow these rules and have to be learnt.
•Many change the vowel sound in the root word rather than adding a suffix (feet, mice, women), some replace
<f> or <fe> with <ves> (wolves, leaves, wives) and others have the same form for both singular and plural (sheep, fish , deer).
•Write the word fungus on the board and ask if anyone knows what this word means (a simple form of plant life such as mushrooms and toadstools).
•Ask the children if they know what its plural is. They may say funguses , following the rule for regular plurals of words ending in <s>. They may know that it can also be fungi , where the <us> is replaced by <i> (which usually says /ie/, although some words like fungi and stimuli, can be either /ie/ or feel).
•Remind the children that many words in English have been borrowed from other languages, and this form of plural comes from Latin.
•A small number of words always use this plural; they tend to be scientific or academic words like stimuli, nuclei and alumni.
•Others, like hippopotamus, cactus, crocus and fungus
can take either the <i> plural or the regular <es> plural.
•However, most Latin words that have been absorbed into English have regular plurals, such as viruses, so the children need to look up words in a dictionary to be sure.

•Furthermore, some words like octopus and plat ypus are not Latin but Greek and so their plurals should be formed in the regular way, although because they look similar to Latin words, the incorrect <i> plural is sometimes used instead.

Activity Page
•The children write plurals for Latin words that always use <-i> (stimuli, nuclei, alumni) and for some words from Greek or Latin that always add <-es> (octopuses, platypuses , viruses).
•They then rewrite the sentences so that the words in bold are plural and everything still agrees (for example: The hippopotamuses lhippopotami wallow in mud to stay cool; I have some cactuses/ cacti in some pot s on my windowsill; Crocuses/ Croci are small flowers that grow in the spring; Mushrooms are fungusesl fungi that are often edible).
•The children can choose to use one form or the other and then draw pictures for them.

Extension Activity
•The children put some words ending in <us> into sentences. They then use a dictionary to find the plurals. Working with a partner , they swap sentences and rewrite them in the plural.
•Possible words are:abacus,apparatus, bonus, campus, chorus, circus (for <es>); radius, rhombus, thesaurus, syllabus, terminus (for both <es> and <i>).

Rounding Off
•Go over the children’s work, discussing their answers.
•If they have done the extension activity, ask some children to read out their sentences.