Room 10 Collective Nouns

Fourth-graders learned about collective nouns, which describe groups of people, places, or things. Some are general - a class of students or a team of players. But others can be quirky and actually work like adjectives - a splash of mermaids or a crash of rhinos. They might describe a noun's appearance, characteristics, habitat, actions, or sound.

For our first lesson, the students paired up and read through books of collective nouns (you'd be surprised how many there are), choosing a couple to explain. For example, "a tower of giraffes is describing the tallness of them," and "a smack of jellyfish is because they flop around in the water."

A. made an awesome connection ... her collective noun book gave one word for a group of hippos,
but she remembered reading about another one in a book she had taken out of the library.

After sharing their explanations, we invented some new collective nouns for some of the same things, including:

• a moo of cows
• a speed of cheetahs
• a spot of giraffes
• a roar of lions

During the second lesson, they came up with collective nouns to describe a group of themselves.

What new fun collective nouns can YOU think of?



Common Core standard addressed: L.4.5. – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.