This document discusses different types of adjectives including descriptive adjectives, articles, nouns used as adjectives, proper adjectives, compound adjectives, possessive adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, interrogative adjectives. It provides examples of each type and exercises for students to practice identifying different adjectives in sentences. The exercises focus on identifying adjectives and the nouns they modify in the context of waterfowl and pet birds like parrots and macaws.

1. Adjectives
7th Grade
Pgs. 336-347

2. Adjectives
• An adjective is sued to describe, or modify, a
noun or pronoun.
• Adjectives answer the following questions:
– What kind? (new car, striped tie)
– Which one? (every page, this swan)
– How many? (one hamburger, many sheep)
– How much? (no food, little rain)

3. Ex. 1 Recognizing adjectives and the words they modify
Pg. 337
1. Ducks, geese, and swans are aquatic birds.
2. All waterfowl swim and float.
3. These birds have webbed feet.
4. Ducks are smaller than other waterfowl.
5. A female duck has dull feathers that blend in with her surroundings.
6. Male ducks, also called drakes, are slightly larger than the females and have more
colorful feathers.
7. A mallard drake has many green feathers on its head.
8. These colorful birds are often called greenheads.
9. A mallard duck plucks feathers from her own body to build a soft, warm nest.
10 .A baby mallard can already swim and feed itself when it is one day old.

4. Articles
(Special Adjectives)
A, An, The
• The definite article THE refers to a specific person, place, or
thing.
Example:
The canoe
The trumpeter swan
• A and an, the other two articles, are called indefinite
articles. They point out a type of person, place or thing, but
they do not refer to a specific one.
Example:
A pond
An old sweater

5. A and An…the Indefinite Articles
• A is used before a consonant sound.
– Example:
• A yellow hat
• A happy time (h sound)
• A onetime nesting area (w sound)
• A unicorn (y sound)
• An is used before a vowel sound.
– Example:
• An endangered water bird (e sound)
• An honest person (aw sound)
• An old map (o sound)
• An uncle (u sound)

6. Ex. 2 pg. 339 Definite and Indefinite Articles
1. (Indefinite) lake is (indefinite) ideal place for swans to live.
2. (Definite) water must not be too deep.
3. Swans must be able to reach (definite) bottom to find food.
4. (Indefinite) lake with gently sloping sides is (definite) best.
5. This allows (definite) birds to get in and out of (definite) water easily.
6. (Definite) plants growing in and around (indefinite) lake are very important to swans.
7. They provide (indefinite) essential supply of nest material and (indefinite) marvelous
place to nest.
8. Some types of swans may spend (indefinite) entire year on (definite) same lake.
9. Other swans, especially those living in (indefinite) cold climate, have to leave before
(definite) winter sets in.
10. (Definite) following spring, they return to (definite) same lake.

7. Nouns used as Adjectives
• A noun used as an adjective usually comes
directly before another noun and answers the
question What Kind? or Which one?
Example:
A shoe salesman
The waterfowl refuge

8. Ex. 3 pg. 340 Nouns used as Adjectives
1. As with other members of the waterfowl family, geese gather in large flocks each
autumn.
2. They travel long distances to spend the winter season in warm climates.
3. While migrating, geese often fly in a wedge formation.
4. This V flight pattern helps the birds fly for a greater distance than they could if they
traveled alone.
5. It also provides an uplift that helps each flock member more easily overcome any air
resistance.
6. When the leader goose tires, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies
to the point position.
7. When the geese honk while flying, they are encouraging the formation leaders to keep
up their flight speed.
8. Flocks will return year after year to the same summer home.
9. Wildlife experts have set up refuges in these areas for waterfowl protection.
10. On some refuges, the goose population may increase to half a million birds for short
times during migration periods.

9. Proper Adjectives
• A proper adjective is—
– A proper noun used as an adjective
– An adjective formed from a proper noun
Examples:
the Truman library
Florida wetlands
December weather

10. Ex. 4 pg. 341 Proper Adjectives
1. Snow geese live in the Arctic region surrounding the
North Pole.
2. Some spend winters along the Atlantic coast.
3. The Canada goose is another popular North American
bird.
4. It usually lays its eggs during warm March or April
days.
5. Some geese gather in winter at California refuges.

11. Compound Adjectives
• A compound adjective is made up of more
than one word. Most compound adjectives
are hyphenated and others are one word.
Examples:
A well-known actress
A full-time job
A featherweight boxer
A freshwater lake

12. Ex. 5 pg. 342 Compound Adjectives
1. Ducks, geese, and swans are web-footed birds that come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.
2. The ruddy duck has a broad, fan-shaped tail and a small body.
3. The black-necked swan of South America has a snow-white body.
4. To help in catching fish, merganser ducks have sharp, backward-facing teeth.
5. Pintail ducks are surface-feeding birds, named for their pointed tails and wingtips.
6. The trumpeter swan has a wedge-shaped head and a unique trumpet-like call.
7. The whistling swan has a very high-pitched call.
8. The canvasback duck has high-powered wings, making it among the fastest ducks in
North America.
9. During the fall, they migrate from northern lakes and ponds to saltwater marshes and
other coastline refuges.
10. Some swans also migrate from freshwater lakes and rivers to seacoast homes.

13. Possessive Adjectives
• Personal pronouns and possessive nouns are often
called possessive adjectives when they modify a noun.
Personal pronouns include: (his, her, their, its, our, yours, my)
Possessive nouns include: (Smith’s, Jones’s, Darko’s)
Examples:
The ducks flapped their wings.
Which ducks are the males.
We see the ducklings on this side of the pond.
The duck’s feathers are colorful.

14. Ex. 6 pg. 344 Possessive Adjectives
1. Europeans first spotted hummingbirds during their explorations of the New World.
2. In his diary, Christopher Columbus wrote accounts of hummingbirds.
3. At First, he though the hummingbird was an insect because of its size.
4. He brought several hummingbirds back to Spain as presents for his patron, Queen
Isabella.
5. The queen let them fly free in her garden.
6. My brother and I found an article about hummingbirds in the library in our school.
7. We learned that the hummingbird was hunted because of its colorful skin.
8. Every fashionable European woman wanted to impress her neighbors with objects
made of hummingbird skin.
9. To meet the demand, hundreds of thousands of hummingbirds lost their lives.
10. Audubon included several paintings of hummingbirds in his book of art prints.

15. Demonstrative Adjectives
• This, That, These, Those
• Demonstrative pronouns can be used as an
adjectives when they modify nouns.
• Example:
– That lake is home to many geese. (adjective)
– What are these? (pronoun)
– These gulls are searching for food. (adjective)

16. Ex. 7 pg. 345 Demonstrative Adjectives or Pronoun?
1. Those are yellow-legged gulls gathered on the beach searching for food.
2. These gulls have dark-yellow legs and a distinctive red spot.
3. That one is a herring gull.
4. These two types of sea gulls are very similar and are often mistaken for each other.
5. This is how you can tell the difference between the two kinds of gulls.
6. Notice the pinkish-colored legs on these herring gulls and the smaller red spots on
their jaws.
7. There are other differences between the two birds besides those.
8. The feathers of this bird are slightly darker than those of the other.
9. These darker feathers belong to the herring gull.
10. Do you think you can remember all of this?

17. Interrogative Adjectives
• Which, What, and Whose—three of the
interrogative pronouns—can also be used as
interrogative adjectives if they modify a noun.
Examples:
Which do you think he will choose? (pronoun)
Whose can that be? (pronoun)
Which parrot do you think he will buy? (adjective)
Whose macaw can that be? (adjective)

18. Ex. 8 pg. 346 Interrogative Adjectives or Pronouns?
1. Which is the most interesting pet to own?
2. What tips should you learn before purchasing a macaw?
3. Which pet shop carries the healthiest macaws?
4. Whose idea was it to come to this pet store?
5. What are we supposed to do to prepare our home for the new parrot?
6. Whose voice does the parrot seem to be imitating?
7. Which are the most unusual sounds that your bird makes?
8. Which brand of food is the most popular?
9. Whose is the best web site for locating information about macaws?
10. What items did you put inside the parrot’s cage?