This activity works either in small groups or as a whole class activity. You select a letter to start the game. You can select your own letter or draw a letter tile from a container for an impartial letter choice. Call on a student to say a noun that starts with that letter. For example, if the letter is "C," the student might say "cat" or "car." Continue calling on students. Each student must say a different noun that starts with that letter. You can also add specifics to the type of noun the student should say like proper nouns only. Pick a new letter to start another round.
The students work individually on this noun activity to come up with as many nouns as possible. Decide on the noun categories for the activity. You might have two columns: one for common and one for proper nouns. Another option is to use three columns for people, places and things. The kids make the specified number of columns on their papers. Set a time for 30 seconds and have the kids write as many nouns as possible to fit under the first category. Repeat for another 30 seconds for each column.
Mad Libs are books full of stories with certain words left out. The book specifies the part of speech for each line. The person doing the activity says a word that fits that part of speech without reading the story to know what would make sense. After all of the blanks are filled, the story is read and often turns out funny. A homemade version of the Mad Libs game works well to teach parts of speech in the classroom if you don't have access to actual Mad Libs books. Write a story with a general plot but leave several nouns out, putting a blank line in their place. Working in pairs, the kids provide nouns for the blanks. They then read their creative stories to see how they turn out. You can also leave out verbs and adjectives if you want to expand the parts of speech practice.
A noun collage adds a little creativity to language arts class. The kids cut out pictures from magazines to represent nouns. The kids glue the noun pictures onto a piece of card stock or sturdy paper. To make it more of a challenge, specify the type of noun that should be in the collage. For example, you could assign the kids a proper noun collage that requires all the pictures to be of items that are proper nouns. This could include famous people or locations.