Teacher notes for this lesson. Two sides of A4, not for pupils.Mild sheetMedium sheetSpicy sheetAnswers
Teacher notes · not for pupils Punctuation sequence

It Belongs to Someone

Apostrophes for singular possession

Lesson 5 of 14
Year 2 45 min

Objective

Use the apostrophe to show that something belongs to one owner, and tell that job apart from a contraction and from a plain plural.

Board title: Apostrophes for belonging  ·  Say it: “Today we're using an apostrophe to show who something belongs to, like Nonna's spoon, and leaving it out when a word just means more than one.”

Curriculum

  • Y2: apostrophes to mark singular possession (the chef's hat)
  • Y2: apostrophes for contracted forms (revisited from Lesson 4)
  • Terminology: apostrophe · singular · plural
  • STA domain: G5.6

Success criteria

  • put the apostrophe before the s for one owner
  • find the owner before I write anything
  • leave the apostrophe out of a plain plural
  • write my own sentences about who owns what

Key vocabulary

apostrophe · owner · belongs to · singular · plural · contraction

Run of the lesson

5 min
Starter: write don't and Nonna's spoon side by side, then stop talking. Take answers on what the same small mark is doing in each. Don't resolve it yet.
9 min
Model with the café: the baby's spoon, the chef's hat. Ask who owns it? before anyone writes, owner first, then the apostrophe, then the s, say it three times. Owners are not only people, a café, a dog, an oven. Park the chefs' hats for next lesson.
6 min
Find-and-fix board walk: Three biscuit's, please, the sign-in-the-window apostrophe, name it out loud. Then the four vote pairs, one finger for owner, two flat hands for plural, a child says WHY before each reveal (answers: a-left, b-right, c-right, d-left).
9 min
Mind the Apostrophe on the whiteboard, Medium band. Levels 1 and 2 are a quick contraction recap; levels 3 and 4 are today's one-owner items. Stay off Spicy, plural possession is next lesson.
13 min
Worksheet, independent. Circulate on Task 3: the third line, more than one with no apostrophe, is where the mark sneaks back in, make them ask 'who owns it?' aloud before you accept the sentence.
3 min
Plenary: two children read a Task 3 sentence, class calls owner or plural. Then the class quiz: do the lemons on Polpetta's list, six lemon's, own anything?
On screenSPAGhetti → Mind the Apostrophe → Medium. One screen only; no pupil devices needed. Read the bank first: Medium levels 1 and 2 are contractions, which makes a useful recap of last lesson, and levels 3 and 4 are the one-owner items you want today. Stay off Spicy, it opens plural possession, which is next lesson.
SPAGhetti · Punctuation sequence · Lesson 5 of 14  ·  Teacher notes 1 of 2
Teacher notes · not for pupils It Belongs to Someone · side 2

On the day

If the tech failsSkip the game entirely. Task 1 is the same content on paper, read the four pairs aloud and vote with thumbs. Or write six phrases on the board and let them hold up one finger for owner, two flat hands for plural.
If they're on devicesLesson code OWNSB (on the worksheet footer) opens the right game, locks the café until 10 items are done, then unlocks it as the reward.

Misconceptions to watch for

The apostrophe on a plain plural. Fresh muffin's. Six lemon's. An s that means 'more than one' owns nothing at all. They have read it on a shop sign a hundred times, so name the error out loud rather than only correcting it.

Every s gets one now. Straight after contraction work they mark every s in sight: the cat's are hungry, we sell pizza's. Two questions sort it, are letters missing, and does somebody own something? Two noes means no mark.

The mark lands on the thing, not the owner. Nonna soup's. The chef hat's. They hear the phrase as one lump and hang the mark on the end of it. Make them point at the owner and say the word whose before the pencil moves.

More than one owner. Someone will ask about the chefs' hats inside ten minutes, and they are right to. Say it is real, say it comes next lesson, and hold today to a single owner. Mixing the two rules now is what causes the muddle later.

The three sheets

Same four tasks on every sheet, in the same order, with the same look. Only the demand changes. Print the one each child needs; nobody does two.

Mild

Same four tasks as every other sheet, same order, same look, the demand is lower, not the dignity. Shorter passage in Task 2, and in Task 3 a word bank or words to tick, with printed sentence starters. Give it to anyone who needs a way in, and expect them to move up.

Medium

The core sheet. Give this to most of the class. No word bank; in Task 3 pupils choose from a few close options, then use one in a sentence of their own.

Spicy

Same four tasks, more demand, a longer passage with a subtler error, and Task 3 asks for two things at once. Not extra work; harder work. Nobody should be doing Spicy and the Medium sheet.

Adaptive teaching

  • Support: Task 1, then Task 3 orally with a scribe. Game on Mild for the contraction recap.
  • SEN: gentle mode on; read Task 2 aloud before they edit.
  • Stretch: Task 3 extension, one sentence with an owner and a plural that needs no mark.
  • EAL: pre-teach belongs to with objects on the table. Hold up a pencil, name the owner, then write the phrase.

Play it

Lesson code OWNSB at playspaghetti.com. The code is printed on the bottom of every pupil sheet with a QR, and Class Quiz in your dashboard opens the plenary quiz for this lesson pre-picked.

SPAGhetti · Punctuation sequence · Lesson 5 of 14  ·  Teacher notes, not for pupils 2 of 2  ·  Ludora