Every sentence tells who or what. The word that names who or what is a noun, a naming word.
A noun names a person (teacher, Grandma), a place (park, kitchen), an animal (puppy, frog) or a thing (cup, kite).
Key idea
A noun names a person, a place, an animal or a thing.
Why it works
Nouns are the names we give to everything around us. Without them a reader would not know who or what a sentence is about: “The ___ ate the ___.”
Worked example: Find the nouns
“The baker makes bread in the kitchen.”
- Baker names a person: a noun.
- Bread names a thing: a noun.
- Kitchen names a place: a noun.
- Makes tells an action, so it is not a noun.
Answer: baker, bread, kitchen
Common mistake
Counting only things you can touch. Teacher and kitchen are nouns too: a person and a place. Ask: does this word name a person, a place, an animal or a thing?
For the grown-up. Play “I spy a noun” around the house: take turns naming a person, a place, an animal and a thing you can see. Harvey’s grammar, in the site’s teaching guides, starts with names of things the same way.