To not understand this homework! Please help!

[ThatEdgyHedgehog]

Please help, I am trying to help (or at least I was last night) with this apostrophe task. I thought I understood. It seems I do not.

In the forest, the wolves' howls’ echoed as the trees' branches’ swayed in the wind. Underground, in the foxes' home, they huddled together to get warm. In the trees’, the squirrel’s feet pattered as they scrambled up and down the branches’ looking for food.

Is that correct? Why does branches have an apostrophe? Howls'?

What was the actual task?

What was the task?

Some of those apostrophes are correct and some are not. Is the task to identify he correct ones?

I’m guessing the task is to remove / correct the apostrophes?

If the task was to place apostrophes it is very wrong.

There are a lot of errors in that paragraph if that's what you mean

The only correct apostrophe is the one after foxes

Some of those apostrophes are wrong, which I assume is the task. Or is this the answer (which is wrong!)

Ah yes, I imagine the task was to remove the incorrect ones

It should be:

In the forest, the wolves' howls echoed as the trees' branches swayed in the wind. Underground, in the foxes' home, they huddled together to get warm. In the trees, the squirrels' feet pattered as they scrambled up and down the branches looking for food.

Assuming there are several wolves, trees, foxes and squirrels. If any of these are singular then it changes.

According to Twinkl, that is correct. Can you correct it for me please?

and wolves’ and trees’

can you give the original task? It’s actually quite confusing to understand.

I'm not 100% sure but this is my attempt:

In the forest, the wolves' howls echoed as the trees' branches swayed in the wind. Underground, in the foxes' home, they huddled together to get warm. In the trees, the squirrels' feet pattered as they scrambled up and down the branches looking for food.

No, lots are right, lots are wrong.

It’s possession. So rephrase each one as being the x of the y.

The howls of the wolves- so wolves’ howls.
The howls belong to the wolves.

The branches of the trees- Trees’ branches.

It’s not the trees belonging to the branches, it’s the branches belonging to the trees.

Does that help?

You're wrong. For example, wolves' is correct (because it's possessive, referring to the howls OF the wolves). There are other correct ones (other possessive apostrophes) and some incorrect ones.

Sentence 1 branches and howls should not have apostrophes. Sentence 2 - looks OK. Sentence 3 -no apostrophe in trees, squirrels', and no apostrophe in branches.

So many responses, thank you

Okay so I do understand it. The answer booklet (that I found online) had the sentence punctuated as in my OP.

This is correct.

Squirrels should have an apostrophe but it should be after the s, not before.

This is the correction from Twinkl

Thank you! I spent ages last night trying to work that out.

Here's the answers that Twinkl have on their worksheet.

Howls, branches and trees shouldn't have an apostrophe as they are not in possession of anything.