[Denis DNT]

For sure your young learners and probably adults do confuse these words "I, my, me, mine, / you, your, yours, etc. Don't blame them so much. These words are truly confusing. Sometimes we even confuse them more by using those "big" words that refer to these "small" words:Subject / Object Personal Pronouns, Possessive adjectives / Pronouns, etc. Put all these terms aside and try the following game:

Step 1. Tell them you're goign to teach them a poem. (My second graders call it the "Toy Poem").

Step 2. Let them copy these four sentences in their notebooks as you write them on the board too.

I have a toy
The toy is for me
It is my toy
The toy is mine

Step 3. Ask them to highlight the words "I" in line one, "me" in line two, "my" in line three and "mine" in line four. They could highlight these words or circle them or write them in colors, etc any way to show that these words are the focus.

Step 4. Get them to say the four lines repeatedly until it becomes a very easy poem to recite. The call that verse 1 of the song or poem.

Step 5. Then tell them that the poem has other versions. Then change the "I" in line one to "you" and let them see how the other words that were highlighted change too. Hence verse 2 of the poem:
You have a toy
The toy is for you
It is your toy
The toy is yours
Step 6. This second verse should be easier for them to recite
Step 7. Depending on the level of your kids and how fast they can memorize, move on to the other versions with "He", "She", "It", "We", "They" and "Jack"
In all you will have 8versions. Version 8 is for you to teach how to use the apostrophe 's.
Step 8. Teach version 8 only when your kids are already very used to the game. It goes thus:
Jack has a toy
The toy is for Jack
It is Jack's toy
The toy is jack's
Step 9. By now your kids should be playing with he poem and some of them replacing the word toy with of there nouns like book, pen, house, candy, etc. Push them to try with any other words they would like. In fact they are about to master four solid sentence structures that will help them at all levels both in writing and in speaking.
Step 10. Writing activity. Make a chart of Possessives for the classroom. Students will have to make individual charts and then jointly make a gaint one of the classroom. The chart has four columns and eight rows. Check it out on the section of worksheets.
Cheers!

[mesmark]

That's a great way to teach those. Are you doing any grammar explanation/translation with the poem? Have you worked with possessive pronouns or object pronouns at all before you do this?

I'm just wondering if you are getting them to understand using the poem or just getting them to memorize structures.

[Denis DNT]

Well, for students who are not familiar with these words I use this poem as a kind of introduction. They memorize without necessaily understanding the details of how each of them works. One of the first things they get hold of is how to position these words in a sentence. That's a good start for them. For higher level students the poem helps in consolidating what they already know about these words. But I have never tried a translation. I think that won't help them much.

[michèle 2]

I will try your method Denis, because I have a 14 year old student who always uses "your" instead of His / Her but does the same in French.!!!

[alinescatao]

I'll try to use the "toy poem" with my students... In Portuguese, the words "your" and "his/her" are very similar, students get easily confused...
I'm sure this "poem" will help them!
Thank you!

[stephanie v.]

I like this idea - I'll change "toy" to "book" and try it. Where is the chart? I can't find it in the worksheets section. Thanks - Stephanie

[Denis DNT]

Sorry Stephanie, because of some reason the chart of possessives didn't get through. I will try to get it up this time. I am sure you will need it. It really helps. Enlarged copies of it are pasted on the wall in each of my classrooms. A4 copies are glued to the back covers of their students' and workbooks. We always get back to the chart when the need arises. Remember possessives are hard to master even to native English speakers!

[gma425]

I cannot find the worksheet either. Would really like to use it. Gma

[silro]

Hi, where is the worksheet Denis? Would love to use your idea in a complete way !!