Plural Nouns

VocabularySpellingCity provides tools for teaching and reinforcing the plural forms of nouns at the elementary school, middle school, and high school levels, including plural nouns worksheets and irregular plurals lists. While most nouns form the plural simply by adding an -s, many are in fact irregular nouns in the plural form. Here's how VocabularySpellingCity can help:

Learning the Rules for Plural Nouns

Mastering the rules for plurals takes practice. When do you add an "es" rather than an "s"? How do you know when to change a "y" to an "i"? Another common question is, what is the plural of deer or moose? Or the plural of curriculum or thesis? Syllabus, crisis, bus, criteria, bacteria? At VocabularySpellingCity, our video lesson on forming plurals teaches the rules that help students form plurals properly.

Fun Activities for Your Classroom

When students learn the rules for forming regular plurals and memorize the exceptions to the rules by practicing irregular plural forms, writing becomes easier and more accurate. Playing games is a great way to cement that knowledge! Here are just a few of the Featured Games on plurals, all available as printable worksheets:

Import Plurals Practice Lists to Your Account and Customize Them

VocabularySpellingCity has lists of plural nouns appropriate for study at different grade levels. You can import them into your account. Once you've done that, you can customize the lists, in case you want to add or remove words from a list, or even write your own sentences. And of course, you can also create your own lists from scratch, featuring precisely the words your students most need to learn, when they need to learn them.

Meeting the Common Core State Standards

VocabularySpellingCity's regular and irregular plurals lessons, games, and activities help students develop vocabulary that meets the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. For example, starting in Kindergarten, the Common Core State Standards require that students "form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes)." By the end of the 2nd grade, the Common Core State Standards expect that students will be able to "Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish)." Word study with VocabularySpellingCity tools can help older students prepare to understand and correctly write plural nouns for state and national standardized tests like the SAT, ACT, and FCAT.

Plural Nouns at a glance:

K-2 - Regular Plurals - s or es endings: cat, cats, book, books, dress, dresses, kiss, kisses cloud, clouds

K-2 - Regular Plurals - change final y and add s: baby, babies, lady, ladies, party, parties, candy, candies, story, stories

K-2 - Irregular Plurals - Internal change: man, men, tooth, teeth, mouse, mice, woman, women, foot, feet

3-5 - Regular Plurals - s or es endings: church, churches, glass, glasses, box, boxes, circus, circuses, brush, brushes

3-5 - Regular Plurals - change final y and add s: grocery, groceries, cherry, cherries, jelly, jellies, country, countries, butterfly, butterflies

3-5 - Irregular Plurals - changed endings or unchanged words: deer, ox, oxen, moose, child, children, sheep, shelf, shelves, series

6-8 - Regular Plurals - s or es endings: brooch, brooches, wilderness, wildernesses, speech, speeches, success, successes, lens, lenses

6-8 - Plurals - consonant endings into vowels: spectrum, spectra, criterion, criteria, cactus, cacti, radius, radii, curriculum, curricula

6-8 - Plurals of "o" words: piano, pianos, tomato, tomatoes, solo, solos, potato, potatoes, kimono, kimonos

9-12 - Regular Plurals - s or es endings: flourish, flourishes, breach, breaches, metropolis, metropolises, annex, annexes, prospectus, prospectuses

9-12 - Plurals with no singular: scissors, species, shorts, trousers, pajamas, pants, cattle, tights, tongs, slacks

9-12 - Plurals ending in a vowel: phenomenon, phenomena, alumnus, alumni, formula, formulae, bacterium, bacteria, nucleus, nuclei

9-12 - Plurals of is or ix words: oasis, oases, appendix, appendices, analysis, analyses, index, indices, diagnosis, diagnoses