Playing the Plural Game

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This fun and simple game is a great way to help explain tricky plurals like mice, sheep and feet to your child.

Your children will naturally improve their language understanding as they grow and talk with others, but some parts of English have irregular rules, like plurals.

All you need to get started are pencils and paper. Watch the video below to see how to set up this fun game to support their learning.

How do you play the plural game?

Before playing the game, you'll draw pictures on each sheet of paper - a single object on one side, and more than one of that object on the other side. For example, drawing an apple on one side of the paper, and two apples on the other side.

Drawing suggestions

• Simple '-s' plurals like apples, balls, tables, stars and cups. Objects that your child sees on a daily basis are great choices.
• Mouse and Mice
• Sheep (as an example where the plural does not change)
• Foot and Feet
• Tooth and Teeth
• Man and Men/Woman and Women

Don't worry if you're not good at drawing - simple pictures work great for this game, and you can always search online for cartoony images for reference.

Once you have drawn your pictures, sit with your child and explain the game:

• You'll show them the drawing of the single object and they say what they see
• Then you flip the paper over and they say what they can see again

How to get the most out of the plural game

To start out your child may use the singular to describe the multiple objects. This is normal, just say out loud the singular and plural objects while pointing to the drawings, and invite them to repeat with you, or fill in the gap.

For example: "Here is one star, and here are three stars! So this is a star, and these are…?"

Your child may get caught out by the tricky plurals, but show how these plurals work in the same way. Because these plurals have different rules, it can become a fun memory game for your child to remember which objects have these different rules.

As well as talking about the objects, counting how many of the objects you've drawn together, or colouring in the objects you've drawn and talking about the colours is a great way to build upon what you're already talking about.

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