Take a lesson from:

Ahhrnold, the Plural-

nator

All the rules and tricks you need to know to form PLURALSPLURALS.

“I take puny singular nouns and PLURAL-NATE THEM! Ha Ha!”

My name is Ahhrnold, the Plural-nator, and I plural-nate puny

regular and irregular nouns and transform them into strong plurals.

I do this by adding specific letters

to the end of the singular noun.

BUT! there are rules to follow to

make sure that each noun has its

correct PLURAL FORM.PLURAL FORM.

For regular nouns: 2 Rules2 Rules

Rule #1:Rule #1:For most puny regular nouns all I do is add an -S at the end to PUMP THEM UP!

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

consonant Add -scat- cats

chair – chairslook –looks

Rule #2:Rule #2: For words that end in a "hissing" sound (-s, -z, -x, -ch, -sh), add an -es to form the plural.Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

s, x, ch or sh Add -esboss - bosses

tax - taxesbush - bushes

I love to PLURAL-nate puny SINGULARREGULAR NOUNS !!!

How I enjoy turning those TRICKY IRREGULAR NOUNS from singular to

PLURALPLURAL!

They are more CHALLENGING having

7 rules!7 rules!

Rule #1:Rule #1: If the word ends in a consonant plus -y, change the -y into -ie and add an -s to form the

plural.

consonant + yChange y to i

thenAdd -es

fly - fliestry - tries

curry - curries

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

For irregular nouns:

Rule #2:Rule #2: If the word ends in a vowel plus -y (-ay, -ey, -iy, -oy, -uy), add an -s to the word.

vowel + y Add -skey – keysway - waysboy – boys

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Rule #3:Rule #3: For words that end in -is, change the -is to -es to make the

plural form.

-ischange –is to

-esthesis - theses

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Rule #4:Rule #4: Words that end in -f or -fe have plurals that end in -ves.

-f or -fechange –f or –fe

to-ves

knife - kniveswife – wives

life - liveself – elves

shelf – shelves

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Rule #5:Rule #5: Words that end in -o are formed by either adding -s or by adding -es.

-oadd –s or –es

studio - studiostaco – tacos

stereo – stereospotato – potatoestomato – tomatoes

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Rule #6: Rule #6: words that end with –us change the –us to -i

ends with -us Change -us to -i

cactus - cactinucleus -

nucleifocus - foci

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Rule #7: Rule #7: if the word ends with -on change –on to -a

ends with -on Change -on to -aphenomenon -

phenomenacriterion - criteria

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

there are those words that don’t have any rules, you just have to memorize them

ALL KINDS

Change the vowelor

Change the wordor

Add a different ending

man – menfoot – feetchild -childrenperson –peopletooth –teethmouse –mice

And some words don’t change at all…

UnchangingSingular and plural

are the same

SheepDeerFish

Moose

I don’t like those words because I can’t PLURAL-nate them! ARGGGG!!!!

Noun ending Forming the plural Examples

Now that you know how to form pluralsplurals out of those PUNY

singular regular and irregular nouns, you too can be a PLURAL-nator !

Just follow those rules, and if you ever get stuck, check the very

strong, the very heavy, DICTIONARY, before I come over there and PLURAL-NATEPLURAL-NATE YOU!!!

Other links and activities:• Regular Nouns: Lesson & Activity

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/plural.htm

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelnoun.html

• Irregular Nouns: Lesson & Activity http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/irrplu.htm

http://www.clta.on.ca/EAOnline/GrammarCentral/reallyirregular.html

• Games:

http://fen.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/shtml.cgi?A1=../plurals/index.htmlhttp://www.quia.com/cc/67715.html