Adverbs Lesson Plan

Fun Adverbs Lesson Plan

In this adverbs lesson plan, students will learn what adverbs are, how to modify verbs with various adverbs, and will play lots of games to practice using adverbs in English. This lesson plan is ideal for kids and beginner English language learners but could easily be adapted to teach older or more advanced students.

Adverbs Lesson Plan

1. Warm Up – Review Action Verbs

A great way to start your adverbs lesson is to review action verbs with students. Students need to know these so they can later use adverbs to modify these verbs. Here is a fun game you can use to review action verbs:

To play, simply show the video in class. There are ten pictures of action verbs hidden behind some colored shapes. As the shapes disappear, students must try and guess the verb. After playing this game, ask students what other verbs they can think of and write them on the board.

2. Define Adverbs

Next, it’s time to introduce adverbs to students. Start by giving students a simple definition of adverbs, followed by some examples to help them understand. Here is a simple adverb definition you can use:

An adverb is a word used to modify the meaning of a verb, adjective, or another adverb.

At this point, you might have to explain to students what modify means to help them understand this definition. Next, show students some examples to help them understand what adverbs are. Using one of the verbs that you wrote on the board in part 1 of this lesson plan, demonstrate how you can modify the meaning with an adverb.

For example, point to the verb ‘run‘ on the board and then act out running. Next, write ‘quickly‘ after the verb ‘run‘ and act out running quickly. Then, write ‘slowly‘ after the verb ‘run‘ and act out running slowly. This simple demonstration should help students to understand what adverbs are and how they are used to modify the meaning of other words.

3. Provide Examples

Next, it’s time to provide students with many examples of adverbs. If this is the students’ first time learning adverbs, then it’s best to stick to regular adverbs. Write these adverb examples on the board:

quickly
slowly
loudly
quietly
calmly
angrily

Next, ask students to identify what all these adverbs have in common. They should be able to see that they all end in ‘ly‘. Tell students that there are many regular adverbs that end in ‘ly‘, but there are many irregular adverbs in English, too. In future lessons, you can teach students about irregular adverbs using this list of adverbs in English.

Once you’ve provided some examples of adverbs, elicit some verbs from students that they can modify. For example, ‘run quickly‘, ‘talk slowly‘, ‘sing loudly‘, ‘whisper quietly‘, ‘speak calmly‘, ‘shout angrily‘, etc.

4. Adverb Game 1: Simon Says

Next, it’s time to play a fun game. This activity is based on the classic classroom game Simon Says. Before starting the game, you must teach students the actions for the game. Ask all students to stand up and then repeat after you and copy your action. Show students 6-8 actions for the game using the adverb examples from the previous step. For example, say “run quickly” and then act out running quickly and ask students to copy you. Do the same for 6-8 other actions and practice them with students.

Once students have practiced enough, tell students only to follow your instructions if you say “Simon says..” first. For example, “Simon says whisper quietly.“, “Simon says walk slowly“, etc. If you don’t say “Simon says…“, then students should not follow your instructions. Any student that does follow your instruction when you don’t say “Simon says…” is out, and must sit down. The last student standing is the winner.

5. Adverb Game 2: Do As I Say

This next adverb game is played in groups. Put students into groups of 3/4 and give each group a piece of paper or a whiteboard to write on. Next, tell students they are going to write down orders that other groups must follow.

Give each group of students 5 minutes to write down as many verb+adverb examples as they can. Next comes the fun part! The groups will take turns ordering others what to do. When it’s their turn, the group of students must point to another group and give them an order. For example, “Dance quickly!“. That group must then follow their order and act out dancing quickly.

Kids really love playing this game, especially when they get to order their classmates to do silly actions. To make this game even more fun, allow students to choose the teacher to give an order to. This will give them more motivation to come up with fun and imaginative examples.

6. Review – Door Check

To wrap up your lesson on adverbs, be sure to review what students have learned. After reviewing what adverbs are and eliciting some examples from students, have all students line up at the door. Before they leave, ask them to think of a verb+adverb example to say to the teacher. The teacher must then act out what students say. Kids really love this activity as they get to make the teacher do silly actions as they come up with funny adverb sentences.


Related Resources

Thanks for reading. I hope you found this adverbs lesson plan useful. Before you go, be sure to check out these related resources:

Adverb Worksheets
Adverbs Quiz
Adverbs Of Frequency Game
List Of Adverb Examples