We use possessives to show that something belongs to somebody. Thus we say: It is Mary's umbrella.  

Example: I found daddy's keys. 

Do you want to show the relationships between people? Then the possessive form can help you in this case as well. Example: It is Ann's brother.  

Example: I met Jacob's dad. 

Do you like shopping? When you want to tell where you made purchases, we can use possessives: I bought these vegetables at the greengrocer's.   

We can free to use possessives to tell about something that belongs to animals:dog’s leg, fox’s fur, bear’s ears, elephant's trunk.  

It is also possible to use a possessive to avoid repeating words: Is that John's phone? No, it's Ben’s. Whose bag is this? It's my sister’s.

A lot of holidays have possessive forms as well. For example, Mother’s day, St. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day.  

As you may notice, we form possessive cases with nouns. But it is also possible to use possessives relative to the gerund. For instance, I’m surprised about Ann’s traveling to Australia.   

It means that I am excited about Ann and the fact that she visited Australia.  

Pay attention that we do not put articles a/an before the possessive case: friend’s book, Dave`s car, brother’s hat, etc.  

When talking about something that does not belong to a person but is part of another thing, we need to use "of". For instant: The roof of his house is brown.  

How can we transform the word into its possessive form? If the word is singular, we add the apostrophe -s: daddy's car, teacher's book, student’s backpack.  

For the plural form of nouns, we will use just the apostrophe. Why? Because it already contains the letter -s. For example, students’ backpacks, teachers’ books, my friends’ photos. You might notice these plural nouns are regular as we build them using the letter -s.

What shall we do if the plurals are irregular? For example, children, men, women, sheep, fish, mice, etc. In this case, we need to add ’s to its plural form as well. It is that easy! Thus we will write children’s toys, women's hats, sheep’s legs.  

Sometimes we need to show the possession of a group of people. For example, to tell about your friends’ new house. How can we do it? When saying their names, add 's with the apostrophe to the last name you mentioned. For example, Mr and Miss Smith’s new car is super fast.  

To practice using the possessive case, you can use the following fun activities. Your children will enjoy playing with vibrant cards!

The first activity will help children memorize when we use the possessive case and put 'of'. Write down the examples of using possessives, for example, sheep’s hooves, lion’s mane, elephant’s ears, bird’s wings.

The examples of nouns that we use with the word 'of': the walls of the house, the sleeves of the sweater, the wheels of the bus, the legs of the chair.

Then get ready the pictures of these words. Put these cards in front of children and ask them to find the illustration of the suitable words. You may set a time limit to help children be more involved.

The next engaging activity will help young learners practice using the plural and singular nouns forms in the possessive case. This question game is for two players or teams. Prepare two envelopes with flashcards. The cards should contain pictures with singular and plural examples of possessives. Before the activity starts, write down all the phrases provided in the cards on the board.

These can be: Bobby’s dog, elephants' trunks, Ann and John’s house, men’s hat, granny’s glasses, children’s toys, parrots’ wings, cat’s tail, Mary and Dave’s parents.  

The first player needs to select an envelope and take out cards without showing them. The second player needs to look at the phrases on the board and ask questions to identify secret pictures.

We hope you will enjoy learning about possessives using our tips!