Adjectives for Kids | What is an adjective? | Learn all about adjectives! | Grades 1-3

Adjectives for Kids Hey kids, or should we say, hey smart kids, see what we did there? We threw an adjective in there. Which word was the adjective? If you guessed the word smart, you're right. Or we could have said, hey curious kids. In that case, the word curious would have been the adjective. You may not know what we mean when we call a word an adjective, so let's explain. An adjective is a part of speech. And what's a part of speech? Well, every word in a sentence has a role, or a part to play. We figure out what each word's role is by defining it as a part of speech. You've got your nouns, like boy, or dog, or house. You've got your verbs, like run, play, or dance. And you've got your adjectives, like smart, or curious. As we mentioned above, obviously not all words are adjectives, only special ones. We use adjectives in sentences to describe what a noun is like, or to give it characteristics. So instead of just boy, we could say tall boy. The adjective there is tall. Or instead of the dog, we could say hungry dog, with hungry as our adjective. Instead of just house, could be a haunted house. Haunted is the adjective there. So why do we use adjectives? Well, without them, we wouldn't be able to describe what things are like. If someone asked you what your best friend is like, you'd need an adjective to describe him or her. As in, he's fun, or she's athletic. He's cool, or she's intelligent. Adjectives are our way of telling other people what the things around us are like, what their characteristics are, and how we think of them. So how do you know if a word is an adjective when you're reading, or listening to a book or a story? Here's a simple test to check if a word is an adjective. Ask yourself this. Does it describe a person, place, thing, or idea? Does it give you a detail about a noun? This is Addie Adjective. Her job is to add information to nouns. For example, imagine Addie is wearing a dress. The word dress is a noun. What's the dress like? Is it green, flowing, flowery, sparkly, soft? Let's say Addie is wearing a soft green flowing dress. In that sentence, soft, green, and flowing are all the adjectives. Now Addie is wearing glasses. What are those glasses like? We need adjectives to tell us. Are they round, square, blue, dark? What else is Addie like? Every word we use to describe her is an adjective. Is she brave, generous, fast, happy, sad, or bold? What are some adjectives you'd use to describe yourself? Your friends. Your mom and dad. Of course, adjectives are not only used to describe people. You can describe almost any noun with an adjective. Your bike might be fast. Your food might be delicious. Your school might be huge. Your homework might be difficult. Fast, delicious, huge, and difficult. All of those words are adjectives. So, to sum up, adjectives are great. They make the world most interesting. They turn ordinary nouns extraordinary. Frankly, adjectives are amazing. Now that you know more about the magical, eye-opening, and exciting world of adjectives, you'll never use nouns the same way again. And, if you always think of Addie when identifying adjectives, you won't go wrong. Isn't that right, colorful, animated, fun-loving Addie? Thanks for following Clarendon Learning. Be sure to subscribe. For more free resources, check us out at clarendonlearning.org.