A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What is a Noun? is another fun story by Brian Cleary. It is to be read with a lot of enthusiasm, because this story gives students an exciting route to learning parts of speech.

This book's reading level ranges from K-2; I would read this story aloud in a 1st grade classroom and as I am reading, I would have my students either hold their thumbs up each time they hear a person, place or thing, or write down a few nouns they heard throughout the story and repeat them after reading. Then I would give them a list of nouns and have them decide if each is a person, place or thing. An extension would be to have them to a creative writing activity, giving them a number of nouns to have in a story they create.

I really enjoyed this story. Brian Cleary's series provides an awesome way for students to engage in learning parts of speech while reading fun, entertaining stories.

With this story, I would first define irregular plurals and give examples. Then we would read the story, and I would have students go back through together and find plural words, deciding if they are regular or irregular and dividing them on a graphic organizer.

Grade level: 2-4th

This book centers around nouns. It presents many different nouns throughout the book and even presents the nouns in different color text. It is engaging and makes introducing or reviewing nouns a more enjoyable experience for all without as much work. 

I would use this book to introduce the topic of nouns or review in upper grades. 

Developmental Reading Assessment Level - 34