Tuesday 5th January 2021

L.C. To understand and use the apostrophe to show possession by singular nouns

What is an apostrophe?

An apostrophe is punctuation that is placed within a word. It is written at letter height rather than on the line. 

We use apostrophes for 2 reasons.

1. to replace missing letters in contracted words
2. to show possession

We are going to look at 2.

First, possession means if it belongs to somebody. E.g. If a pencil case belongs to Sarah we would write it as: Sarah’s pencil case.

If a jumper belongs to Sita we would write it as:

Sita’s jumper.

If a bag belongs to Ben we would write it as:

Ben’s bag.

The apostrophe goes before the s after the persons name.

Let’s play ‘find the owner’

If a singular owner is followed by a noun that belongs to the owner, we place an apostrophe before the final s of the owner.

For this game write down the owner of the following objects.

The dog’s collar

The headteacher’s office

The dinner lady’s apron

Holly’s cup

Now sometimes a noun can appear plural, but they are in fact singular e.g., audience, family, group. These contain several people, but they are a singular audience, singular family, or singular group. We would punctuate these the same way as we would a singular owner e.g., the audience’s laughter; the family’s car; the group’s meeting place.

Task

The sleigh belonging to Santa was being pulled by his reindeer.

The sweets belonging to Emma were very tasty.

The collar on the dog was very smart.

Now answer the following questions. Find the Owner:

Whose sleigh is it?

Whose sweets are they?

Whose collar is it?

Good.

Now look at how I have change the first sentence so that I use an apostrophe for possession.

Before

The sleigh belonging to Santa was being pulled by his reindeer.

After

Santa’s sleigh was being pulled by his reindeer.

Can you do the same for the other two sentences.

Task

Change the following sentences to include an apostrophe for possession.

1. The bread the baker made tasted very good.
2. The drummer of the band was very noisy.
3. Have you seen the book belonging to John?
4. The playing field of the school was very muddy.

Home learners please could you take a photo of your English work and email it to Mr Hindman on Purple Mash.