Jennifer's
Weekly Feature
A Day at the Beach: Summer Articles Practice
It’s much too hot to think of heavy studying
right now, so I thought I’d pick a lighter topic, those pesky
English articles, with a fill-in-the-blank summer story
paragraph, A Day at the Beach, for practice.
First, let’s review a couple of basic article
rules. I’ll do a few rules here, and do several more in my next
Weekly Feature.
1. The indefinite articles, “a” and “an” are used
before singular nouns, not plural nouns. “A” is used before nouns
starting with a consonant sound, for example, a swimming suit, a
bottle of sunscreen. “An” is used before words starting with a vowel
sound, like an egg.
2. The definite article “the” can go before either
singular or plural nouns, for example, the diving board or the
diving boards.
3. For words we don’t know the amount of such as
silver or gold, intelligence or insight, we don’t use any article.
For example, “Silver is used to make beautiful Navajo jewellery. Or,
“Insight is a good quality to have.”
4. When we do know the amount, we use “the”, the
definite article. For example, “The silver used in that sword makes
it very heavy.”
5. The last rule for now is this. Articles aren’t
used before countries, cities, towns, and people’s names. For
example, “The Jennifer is sitting by that pond in the New
Westminster in the Canada.” To make this sentence right we’d have to
-? Right! Take out the articles.
For the following story, fill in the blanks with
a, an, the, or leave it blank if an article isn’t needed. More than
one article may fit. Do it with a friend and compare your answers.
A Day at the Beach
On July 27, my family and
I went to ________ Rosamaria Beach. We were on vacation in ______
Baja, _____ California. _____tide was out, and we were able to walk
far out to ______ water. _____ light seemed to bounce off each of
_____waves. _____ colours of that day were _____gold and
_____silver, _____ blue and _____tan. Susie, my youngest, was out of
_____ car almost before it had stopped. She grabbed _____ pail and
_____shovel and started looking for _____starfish right away. She
wanted to take home _____ starfish for _____ pet. Would she find
_____crabs, too? My husband and I shook out our bright yellow beach
blanket and spread _____ blanket flat on _____ soft sand squidging
between our toes. All around us, other families were getting
_____toys and _____food out of _____ car, eager to have fun. My
sons, Jock and Ben, raced towards ______ nearest tidal pool, hoping
to find _____ fish they could keep for _____ pet. _____ little boy
ran past us, proudly carrying his three fish to show his mom. _____
wonderful day was just beginning, and I took _____potato salad,
_____grapes, _____sandwiches, and _____ fruit juice out of _____
picnic basket with _____ happiness for this time together at ______
beach in _____ Baja.
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