GRANDMA’S GRAMMAR!
Here are a few grammar tips that might help you in your writing.

Basic Parts of Speech
Just like in a story that has different characters, words in sentences play different roles.

There are eight different parts of speech, and each part helps to build a sentence.
Parts of Speech: Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Adjectives, Conjunctions, Prepositions, Interjections.

• NOUNS are very important in a sentence. NOUNS describe people, places, or things.

Common Nouns name general items: monkey, cat, dog, boy, girl.  Common Nouns can also be emotions, like angry or happiness or ideas, like patriot.  Words that end in -nes, -tion, or - meant like Happiness, connection and government are usually NOUNS.
Proper Nouns name a particular person, place or thing: Astronaut, Christmas, Chloe, George.  You always capitalize proper nouns

• PRONOUNS are substitutes for NOUNS. There are four different types of PRONOUNS: personal, indefinite, demonstrative, and possessive

A Personal Pronoun can be used in the place of names for men and women, or when the gender is unknown.  Personal Pronouns: Singular  I, we, you, he, him, she, her, it

Personal Pronouns: Plural: they, them, who, whom whoever, whomever

Indefinite Pronouns refer to males, females or males and females.  They don’t specify gender.

Indefinite Pronouns: everybody, anybody, either, neither, each any

Demonstrative Pronouns are used to describe particular people, places or things. Demonstrative Pronouns: this, that, these, those

Possessive Pronouns shows ownership.  Possessive Pronouns: my, mine, your, yours, her, hers, his, their, theirs, our, ours, its

• VERBS describe actions or states of being.

There are different forms of verbs to show when action is happening, such as past, present, or future.  This is called a verb’s tense. (Past Tense, Present Tense, Future Tense)

VERBS can also be regular or irregular. A regular verb will allow you to form a Past Tense of the word by adding a  -d or -ed to the word.

Example: follow  -  followed, smile  -  smiled,  like  -  liked

Irregular VERBS follow a different rule.  You cannot simply put a -d or -ed to show the Past Tense, to show a Past Tense in an Irregular VERB you create a different spelling of the word.

Example: sleep - slept, drink  -  drank, grow  -  grew

The most common form of Irregular VERBS shows a state of being (how you are).
Example:  I am  -  I was,  It is  -  It was,  We are  -  We were

Infinity VERBS form is a VERB form that begins with to.

Example:  to walk, to run, to play
To create a Future Tense of a VERB for both a regular and irregular VERB, put the word will in front of the Present Tense VERB.  

Example: will walk, will run, will play

• ADJECTIVES give details

ADJECTIVES make sentences interesting and help us to clearly understand the world.  ADJECTIVES are considered Modifiers.  A Modifier adds to NOUN (a person, place, or thing) to make them more descriptive.

Example: You did a fantastic job!  Chloe wore a striped dress.

You can make NOUNS into ADJECTIVES by changing their endings by adding a - y, -ful, and -tic.

Example:  flower  -  flowery,  color  -  colorful, fantasy  -  fantastic Special words we use like a, an, the Modify NOUNS and are called Articles.

• ADVERBS ask How? When? How much? Where?  They help us answer questions.

ADVERBS are also considered Modifiers and add detail to our speech.  ADVERBS Modify VERBS (describes an action, state, or occurrence).

Example: The dog barked loudly. (The adverb loudly modifies the verb barked)Many ADVERBS are ADJECTIVES with an -ly ending.

• CONJUNCTIONS: join words and ideas together.

CONJUNCTION words include: and, or, but, if, yet, nor, and so.

Example: The dog was hungry and thirsty. I wanted to take the dog to the park, but he was too lazy.

• PREPOSITIONS help to clarify action.

PREPOSITIONS are words that indicate a location, such as above, aboard, about, near, in, out, on, between, near, by, and along. They are used with VERBS to clarify action. They also refer to an Object, which is always a noun.

Example:  The cat sat in my basket.  In this sentence in is the PREPOSITION that refers to the object my basket to explain where the cat sat.

• INTERJECTIONS show excitement!

Yikes! Ouch! Wow!  Exciting words or words that express confusion are called INTERJECTIONS.   They may be followed by an exclamation point, or connected to sentences using commas:

Example: Ouch, who left the Legos on the floor?