In this activity, students must complete a crossword where each answer is an irregular plural noun. The twist – the clue for each word is the singular of the noun.
We include two versions of the crossword for you – the usual, printable PDF format and an interactive version, as a PowerPoint document. While you could simply email the PowerPoint document to students, there’s a better way to manage assignments and feedback:
1) Import the presentation into Google Slides
2) Add your new presentation to Google Drive
3) Assign it to students via Google Classroom
4) Students complete the crossword online and do not even need Microsoft Office
Teaching online
This activity is ideal for teaching via Zoom, since you can easily assign the worksheet to all your students through Google Classroom. Then, you could allow them to pair up in Breakout Rooms and work on the task collaboratively. However, if you don’t want to use Zoom, many other platforms also support breakout rooms – here’s a list of alternatives to Zoom.
Procedure
Give each student a copy of the crossword. Alternatively, divide students into pairs to work on the crossword together. You can dip in to offer help, if necessary.
If working online with a small group, you could assign one copy of the crossword to the whole group to work on collaboratively. Conversely, if you have a large class, you should assign a copy to each student.
We have designed the crossword such that students can solve some of the more difficult plurals by first solving the easier ones, e.g. geese, crises, criteria. Consequently, even those students who do not know the more advanced irregular plurals will learn them through completing this task.
