Nouns

• 1st grade
• CCSS L.1.1b

A noun is a word that names a person, an animal, a place or a thing. Mom, dog, park and ball are all nouns.

What is a noun?

Nouns are naming words. Everything around your child has a name, and every one of those names is a noun: chair, window, sister, kitchen, cat.

Kids learn nouns first because almost every sentence has one. Once your child can find the noun, it's much easier to learn the words that go with it, like the verb that says what it does.

Nouns are part of 1st grade grammar in the Common Core standards (L.1.1b), and most kindergartners already use them when they talk. In 1st grade, kids learn to name them, sort them and spot them in sentences. Proper nouns, plurals and possessives come next.

Person, animal, place or thing

Most nouns fit into one of four groups. Sorting them is a great first game, because it makes kids think about what each word names.

Some nouns name things you can't touch, like fun, love or idea. Those are called abstract nouns, and kids meet them in 3rd grade. For now, person, animal, place and thing is all your child needs.

Noun examples in sentences

Read these with your child. The highlighted words are nouns. Notice that one sentence can have two or three of them.

1. The dog ran to the park.
2. My mom made pancakes.
3. The teacher read a book.
4. A bird sat on the fence.
5. Liam lost his shoe at the beach.
6. The baby dropped her cup.
7. We saw a horse on the farm.
8. Put the crayons in the box.
9. The bus stopped at the corner.
10. Grandpa planted tomatoes in the garden.

Look at sentence 5. Liam is a noun too, because it names a person. A name is a special kind of noun called a proper noun, and it starts with a capital letter.

Words like his and her point to a person, but they aren't nouns. They are pronouns, which kids learn later in 1st grade.

Three ways to spot a noun

When your child isn't sure, try one of these quick tests.

• Put "the" in front. If "the ___" makes sense, the word is probably a noun: the dog, the park. "The happy" doesn't make sense, so happy isn't a noun.
• Ask "Can I see it, touch it or go there?" You can see a cat, touch a cup and go to a beach. You can't touch run or blue.
• Point to it. In a picture book, ask your child to point to the thing the word names. If they can point to it, it's a noun.

How to teach nouns

Five short steps, about 10 minutes each. Do one a day.

1. Go on a noun hunt. Give your child five sticky notes. They write or draw the name of five things in the room and stick each note on the thing: door, lamp, bed.
2. Sort into four groups. Fold a paper into four boxes: person, animal, place, thing. Your child sorts word cards or pictures into the boxes.
3. Play I Spy. "I spy a noun that's a place where we buy food." Take turns. Every answer is a noun.
4. Hunt in a book. Pick one page of a picture book. Your child points to every noun they can find while you read it aloud.
5. Write a sentence. Your child writes one sentence about their day with at least two nouns, then underlines them.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Practice: nouns quiz

10 questions. Your child can tap the speaker to hear a question read aloud. The first try on each question counts toward the score.

1. 1.Tap the two nouns.

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   The cat sat on the mat.

   Show answer

   cat and mat. A cat is an animal; a mat is a thing.

2. 2.Which word is a noun?

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   jump apple happy
   Show answer

   apple. It's a thing you can see and touch.

3. 3.Is park a person, an animal, a place or a thing?

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   person animal place thing
   Show answer

   place. You can go to a park.

4. 4.Tap the two nouns.

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   My sister likes soup.

   Show answer

   sister and soup.

5. 5.Which word is not a noun?

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   teacher quickly garden
   Show answer

   quickly. It tells how something is done. It doesn't name anything.

6. 6.Horse is a noun. What kind?

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   person animal place thing
   Show answer

   animal.

7. 7.Tap the two nouns.

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   A frog jumped into the pond.

   Show answer

   frog and pond.

8. 8.Which sentence has three nouns?

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   The boy ate. The boy ate an apple in the kitchen. The boy is hungry.
   Show answer

   The boy ate an apple in the kitchen. The nouns are boy, apple and kitchen.

9. 9.Finish with a noun: I write with a ___.

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   pencil blue fast
   Show answer

   pencil.

10. 10.Tap the two nouns.

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    Grandma gave me a book.

    Show answer

    Grandma and book. Me is a pronoun.

Nouns worksheet (free PDF)

Nouns Worksheet, 1st grade

Circle the noun in six sentences, sort eight nouns into four groups, finish sentences with a noun and write your own. Prints on US Letter paper, with an answer key.

Download the PDF

Try it at home

• At dinner: take turns naming a noun from the table, one each, until someone runs out.
• In the car: call out nouns you pass: truck, tree, school, dog.
• At the store: your child reads three nouns from labels or signs.
• With toys: your child sorts a pile of toys into animals, people and things.
• At bedtime: find five nouns on one page of the story.

What comes next

After nouns, kids learn proper nouns (names with capital letters) and plural nouns (one dog, two dogs). Then come verbs, the words that tell what a noun does. See every skill for the year on the 1st grade page, or browse all grammar lessons.

Last reviewed: November 11, 2026

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