Baby Shower

       Today was my friend's baby shower. She lives in North Carolina now so I haven't seen her since she became pregnant. She looked magnificent! I had such a great time with my friends. The shower was so well planned. At each place setting was a cookie that said, "It's a boy" and a day planner. Then, there was a BINGO game to fill in with gifts we thought she was going to receive, an unscramble the words paper, a paper where we had to guess flavors of baby food, and a paper with baby pictures of the mother and father-to-be and we had to guess how old they were in the pictures. I was terrible at the game where we had to guess the ages of the baby pictures. I thought they were much older than they really were. I also did not do well guessing the flavors of baby food. However, I did do well unscrambling the words. Some of the words were difficult such as Braxton Hicks and midnight feedings. She received a plethora of gifts. I don’t know how she is going to transport all of her gifts back to her home in North Carolina. In the invitation was a poem that suggested guests do not bring a card, but instead bring a book and write a note to the baby and parents-to-be in the book. I thought this was a marvelous idea.

Vocabulary Words:

1. Pregnant

2. Magnificent

3. Place setting

4. Braxton Hicks

5. Plethora

6. Transport

7. Marvelous

Definitions:

1. Pregnant: When a woman has a baby developing in her body

2. Magnificent: beautiful or wonderful

3. Place setting: a plate, silverware, and a glass on a table for a meal

4. Braxton Hicks: contractions, or false labor contractions

5. Plethora: many

6. Transport: to move from one place to another

7. Marvelous: great, wonderful

Vocabulary Cloze Exercise:
1. My friend is __________________ and is expecting a baby boy.
2. The view from the Empire State Building was _____________________.
3. I put a ____________ ____________ where each person will sit at the table.
4. My friend thought she was going into labor, but it was just ________________ _______________.
5. The store had a __________________ of books to choose from.
6. I used a truck to _________________ my belongings from New York to my new home in Florida.
7. The Queen of England looked _____________________ in her gown.
 

Grammar Point: Articles

An article is a kind of adjective which is always used with and gives some information about a noun. There are only two articles a and the, but they are used very often and are important for using English accurately. The word a (which becomes an when the next word begins with a vowel) is called the indefinite article because the noun it goes with is indefinite or general. The word the is known as the definite article and indicates a specific thing. Whenever you see an article, you will find a noun with it. 

Grammar Activity

1. Which is not correct?
a. the monkey
b. a apple
c. a clock
d. the ball

2. Which is not correct?
a. an elephant
b. a bat
c. the dog
d. a cats

3. Which is not correct?
a. the tie
b. an hat
c. a shirt
d. the pajamas

4. Which is not correct?
a. I see a cat.
b. I see the cat.
c. I see her cat.
d. I see cat.

Click here for a worksheet on articles