Desperately needing help with English homework

[iwaly]

Have never ventured to this part of Mumsnet but hoping someone here can help me out. DD is struggling with her English homework and I am confused as well. All she has to do is identify and underline the nouns in a passage of text. We of course can do some of the more obvious ones but here are some examples I do not know:

"The idea of a snake occurred to me". I know snake is a noun but what about idea? She is going by person, place or object as a definition of noun (Year 9) but idea is not any of those things but to me it seems like a noun??

"I was relying on my knowledge...and felt I was on the right track". Do you think knowledge or track are nouns??

"The poison could not be discovered by any test" We have poison as a noun but what about test??

"Then I thought of the whistle". In the context, the whistle is a sound not an object (he had heard a person whistle) so is it a noun?

"The morning light revealed that she had fallen victim...at the end of the week". I really don't know whether light, victim or week would be nouns as they are not persons, places or objects.

"I had come to these conclusions...an inspection showed me that he had been in the habit of....and this was enough to dispel any doubts." Once again my daughter is confused as to whether conclusions, habit or doubts fall under the definition of a noun in this sentence.

"The metallic clang was heard by Miss S" I know Miss S must be a noun but what about clang?

"Having made up my mind, I took steps to put it to the proof." What are the nouns in this one.

Sorry to ask for help and it is very long - but there are lots of examples which don't fit the "person, place or object" definition but which I feel could be nouns but I would like someone to help me before I tell DD the wrong thing about this. If anyone has time to answer about how to be sure if something is a noun I would really appreciate it.

Here's my take. My school was hot on grammar.

idea - noun
knowledge - noun
track - noun

There are different types of noun but I forget quite a few of them.

Other sentence mind, steps and proof are nouns. Miss S is a bit more difficult. I'd say as a name it was a proper noun.

"The idea of a snake occurred to me"
Idea, snake, me (technically a pronoun)

"I was relying on my knowledge...and felt I was on the right track".

knowledge and track and I

I would say whistle is a noun in that context too. Whilst you can't see it, it is a "thing". Sorry I can't think how else to describe my logic!

Anything which is the name of something is a noun. anything!

"The poison could not be discovered by any test"

Poison, test

"Then I thought of the whistle".

I, whistle

"The morning light revealed that she had fallen victim...at the end of the week".

Morning, light, she, victim, end, week

"I had come to these conclusions...an inspection showed me that he had been in the habit of....and this was enough to dispel any doubts."

Conclusions, inspection, me, he, habit, doubts

"The metallic clang was heard by Miss S"

Clang, Miss S

"Having made up my mind, I took steps to put it to the proof."

Mind, I, steps, proof

Idea and knowledge are abstract nouns.

I always imagine nouns as the word you would write on a luggage tag for that thing because they are labelling words.

If it's not a verb, adverb or adjective there is a strong chance it's a noun!

Generally anything that can be preceded by 'a' or 'the' is a noun eg don't, track. A pronoun is something that is used in place of a previously mentioned noun eg it, she, I etc. Abstract nouns are things like love, hate, fear, conscience etc and concrete or common nouns are things like table, dress, house.

HTH .... Grammar is a PITA!

Things like feelings, thoughts, noises, days of the week, months etc are abstract nouns. All the ones you say are nouns in my mind. The only one I am unclear about is 'test'
In the last one I think mind and steps are nouns. Not sure about proof in the same way I am not sure about test.
Person place or objects describe concrete nouns.
S (in miss s ) is a proper noun, Miss is possibly an adjective describing S? But I may be wrong!

In answering this question I personally would not underline I, me, he etc as these are pronouns and therefore replace nouns....so are not really nouns?

In your sentences the following are nouns:

idea
snake
knowledge
track
poison
test
whistle
light
victim
end
week
conclusions
inspection
habit
doubts
clang
Miss S
mind
steps
proof

'Morning' is normally a noun but here is used as an adjective to describe 'light'.

Words like 'I', 'she' etc are pronouns.

Nouns are words used to name people, places, things, but also abstract concepts and actions (e.g. 'a jump', rather than 'jumped' which is a verb).

Thank you all for the help. You have all confirmed to me that my gut instinct about what words are nouns is generally correct (I sort of knew but found it hard to come up with an explanation - such as the labelling idea or asking whether you can put "the" in front of it) but now I don't know what this teacher is trying to teach. I have not been impressed so far and this is another example where DD will end up more confused because she has just been told nouns are a person, place or object and did not underline most of the words I thought could be nouns!! Thank you to those who have explained that this does not cover abstract nouns which are (mostly) the ones she is not identifying. I will have a discussion with her about concrete nouns and abstract nouns.

PS We do know about pronouns and I am assuming (maybe wrongly) that these are not what the teacher is after. I might get DD to put a note at the bottom saying she has not underlined the pronouns just so the teacher knows this was her approach.

Can I ask if any of you are teachers or know about what should be expected of/taught to a year 9 student - is the idea of abstract nouns reasonable to teach them?

This website page might help. It explains things quite clearly

www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/nouns_different_types.htm

I'm a Secondary languages teacher but have taught a bit of English. I think different types of noun are taught in KS2 in primary school.

I teach abstract nouns in year5, so yes.

Thanks again. DD has been complaining that the teacher is starting year 9 by "going over again" what is a verb, an adjective an adverb etc but it sounds like they need to go over it because if they were taught in KS2 or even in years 7 and 8 some of them clearly did not retain this. DD struggles a bit with English so possible she did not fully understand/retain it at the time. I have printed out from the website suggested by Viviennemary because I do not know if the teacher did not provide the proper explanation or if DD has just not taken it all in so best to have something to refer to. Thanks all for your help.

"Person, place or object" is a strange definition for year 9. I teach my year 2 class that it doesn't have to be a tangible object, but could be something abstract like friendship. I don't use that terminology. They're bright but...

Well when the teacher marked the homework apparently she said that "idea" was not a noun but "idea of a snake" was a noun. DD is now more confused!!

Are you sure she said 'noun' and not 'noun phrase'?

Ds says he was told wind is an abstract noun. I nearly fainted

My DH, to whom I read this, said whoever told him that should go near a farting cow - rapid disabuse of this idea would follow.