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Could you climb a fourteener? Possessive 's, s' and of for people, places and time

This B1 ESL lesson plan teaches the possessive 's, s' and of, from Colorado's peaks to the top of the mountain, with fourteener trail crews.

Grammar
's for people, animals, places, groups and time (a day's hike), s' for plurals in -s (the volunteers' tools), and of for parts of things and long phrases.
Topic
Colorado's fourteeners, the peaks over 14,000 feet, and the crews and volunteers who repair their trails, with words such as trailhead, treeline and tundra.
Activities
A feature to read, a day on a trail crew and a listener's first summit to hear, self-checking drills, a hike-planning chat and open boxes.

What's inside

  1. Chapter 1Warm-up: lace up your boots!

    • PictureUnlock
    • Spin the wheel and answerSpin the wheelUnlock
    • Study the words: up the mountainVocabularyTry it
    • Look at the pictures and choose the wordChoose by pictureUnlock

  2. Chapter 2Let's read: 58 peaks, or 53?

    • Look at the photo: a fourteener in ColoradoPictureUnlock
    • Read Riley's story on the show's websiteArticleUnlock
    • Read and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock
    • Read again and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock

  3. Chapter 3Let's listen: Riley joins the trail crew

    • Listen to Riley and FerrisListeningTry it
    • Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
    • Listen and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock
    • Listen to the Listener's Take: Lorraine's messageListeningUnlock
    • Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
    • Listen and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock

  4. Chapter 4Grammar: Colorado's peaks, the top of the mountain

    • Study the scheme: 's, s' or ofGrammar schemeTry it
    • Choose the correct optionChoose the optionUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps: add 's or 'Fill in the gapsUnlock
    • Fill in the table: one owner or more than one?Fill in the tableTry it
    • Drag the words into the gaps: whose is it?Drag and dropUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer: which sentence is correct?QuizUnlock

  5. Chapter 5Let's talk: plan a fourteener hike

    • Choose the right replies: plan a hike with EuniceChatTry it
    • Open a box and answerOpen the boxUnlock

  6. Chapter 6Homework

    • Match the words and the meaningsMatchUnlock
    • Unscramble the wordsAnagramUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps with the lesson's wordsFill in the gapsUnlock
    • Find the matching pairs: words and meaningsMemory gameUnlock
    • Choose the correct option: new sentencesChoose the optionUnlock
    • Fill in the gaps: add 's or 'Fill in the gapsUnlock
    • Put the words in the correct orderUnjumbleUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer: which sentence means the same?QuizUnlock
    • Choose the correct option: the trail crew's postChoose the optionUnlock
    • Drag the words into the gaps: Riley answers LorraineDrag and dropUnlock

32 exercises in 6 chapters. Start a 7-day free trial to open all of them, copy any part into your own lessons, and teach the lesson live.

Vocabulary

12 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.

+9 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words

  • exhausted
  • ridge
  • treeline
  • tundra
  • boulder
  • trailhead
  • power tool
  • botanist
  • altitude sickness

Grammar: possessive 's, s' or of

The possessive 's goes after an owner: Riley's backpack, Colorado's peaks, a day's hike. For parts of things and long phrases, English uses of instead: the top of the mountain. On a fourteener trail, students place the apostrophe for one owner or many, and keep it out of plain plurals and its.

Colorado's peaks, the top of the mountain

Use 's or s' when someone or something has something: people, animals, places, groups and time. Use of for parts of things and with long phrases.

's for people, animals, places, groups and time

Add 's to a person or a name, an animal, a place, a group or a time word: my dad's boots, Footnote's bed, Colorado's peaks, the crew's lunch, tomorrow's weather. Time words take 's too: Longs Peak is a long day's hike.

Who or whatFormExamples
a person or a name+ 'sRiley's backpack, Lorraine's first fourteener, my dad's boots
an animal+ 'sFootnote's bed, the dog's water bowl
a place+ 'sColorado's peaks, Kansas City's bookstores
a group+ 'sthe crew's lunch, CFI's count
time+ 'sa day's hike, today's job, tomorrow's weather

One owner or more than one?

One owner takes 's: the volunteer's gloves. A plural ending in -s takes only the apostrophe: the volunteers' gloves, the hikers' boots, two weeks' work. A plural with no -s takes 's: the children's trail, people's bags, the women's crew.

OwnerFormExamples
one (singular)+ 'sthe volunteer's gloves (one volunteer)
a plural with -sadd only ' after the sthe volunteers' gloves (ten volunteers), the hikers' boots, two weeks' work
a plural with no -s+ 'sthe children's trail, people's bags, the women's crew

's or of?

Of is for parts of things: the top of the mountain, the end of the trail. A long phrase takes of as well: the name of the trail they built, not the trail they built's name. Some mountain names have no apostrophe at all: Longs Peak, Grays Peak.

's or of?

's: people, animals, places, groups, time

  • Riley's gloves
  • the crew's truck
  • a day's work

of: parts of things, long phrases

  • the top of the mountain
  • the end of the trail
  • the name of the trail they built

Long phrases and mountain names

With a long phrase, use of: the name of the trail they built (not: the trail they built's name). And some mountain names have no apostrophe at all: Longs Peak, Grays Peak, Torreys Peak.

Plural, possessive or its?

A plain plural has no apostrophe: Two volunteers came late, not volunteer's. The apostrophe appears only when someone has something. Its, meaning of it, has no apostrophe: the trail and its steps; it's means it is.

Plural or possessive?

A plain plural has no apostrophe: Two volunteers came late (not: two volunteer's). Use an apostrophe only when someone has something: the volunteers' tools. And its (= of it) has no apostrophe: the trail and its steps. It's = it is.

On the mountain

  • Colorado's fourteeners are all higher than 14,000 feet.
  • The volunteers' tools are gloves, hard hats and rock bars.
  • Longs Peak is a long day's hike.
  • The tundra's plants grow very slowly.
  • Riley didn't climb to the top of the mountain.
  • Lorraine wore her dad's old boots.

Common mistakes

  • Two volunteer's came late.

    Two volunteers came late.

    a plain plural: no apostrophe

  • the childrens' trail

    the children's trail

    children has no -s: add 's

  • It's a days hike.

    It's a day's hike.

    time words take 's too

  • the trail they built's name

    the name of the trail they built

    a long phrase: use of

More lessons on this grammar: Possessive adjectives and pronouns lessons and exercises

Try the possessive 's exercises

Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.

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What's in the lesson

  • 18 auto-checked exercises
  • 5 games
  • 1 article
  • 1 grammar scheme
  • 1 set of word cards
  • 2 audio clips
  • 2 pictures
  • 2 transcripts

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

  • add 's to people, places, groups and time: Lorraine wore her dad's old boots. Colorado's highest peak is Mount Elbert. It's a day's hike.
  • put the apostrophe after a plural -s, and use 's after children and people: the volunteers' tools, two weeks' work, the children's trail
  • use of for parts of things and long phrases: the top of the mountain, the name of the trail they built
  • plan a hike with possessives and safety tips: We can take my brother's car. Then we turn around, even near the top of the mountain.

Lesson 29 opens Adventure and challenge, unit 8 of English B1.2 · Changemakers. It builds on A1.1 lesson 6, where the possessive 's first appeared with pets, and on A1.2 lesson 28's Whose…? with mine and yours. Lesson 30 turns to must and can't for deductions. A mountain full of owners, from Colorado's peaks to the volunteers' tools and a day's hike, calls for every kind of possessive.

Students spin a wheel of questions about hiking, heights and challenges, then learn twelve words, from haul and replant to altitude sickness, with pictures and audio. They read Riley's feature on Colorado's fourteeners and the people who repair their trails, then hear her spend a day with Ferris on a volunteer trail crew and a message from Lorraine about her first summit, both AI-voiced. The grammar chapter has the scheme and five self-checking drills, among them a table that turns one owner into many. In the speaking chapter, students plan a fourteener hike in Eunice's chat, then open boxes about challenges and views.

All ten homework tasks check themselves: a word match, an anagram, a word gap-fill and a memory game, then a choice of forms in new sentences, gaps for 's or ', word order, a same-meaning quiz, the trail crew's post and Riley's reply to Lorraine with words to drag.

Grammar:
possessive 's · plural possessive s' · 's or of · a day's hike
Topic:
Colorado · fourteeners · hiking · trail crews · volunteering · the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative · mountain safety · Stories That Travel

Teaching tips

  • Start with things on the desks: hold up a pen and ask Whose is it? Students answer with a classmate's name, It's Sam's pen, then try things with two owners: the twins' bags.
  • Before the feature, ask how many fourteeners Colorado has. Students guess, then read to find that it depends on the list: CFI counts 58, and other lists count 53 or 54.
  • Play Riley's day on the trail twice: first for the crew's work, then for every possessive. Students write each one under 's, s' or of: today's job, the volunteers' tools, the top of the mountain.
  • Turn the packing box into a pair task: students name five things for a day's hike and whose they are, my mom's hat or my friends' tent, and the partner says whether there is one owner or more.

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The whole course: English B1.2 · Changemakers

32 lessons for adults at B1 in American English, about people and ideas that changed things: start-ups, future cities, food, memory, customs, art, volunteers and adventure. The podcast team of English B1.1 is back for a season called Changemakers. Learners use the second conditional, the passive, reported speech, the past perfect, relative clauses and verb patterns, and the practice exercises check themselves.See the course

  1. Unit 1 Start-up stories

    the second conditional, If I were you, the first vs the second conditional, also, too, as well and besides

    1. Lesson 1The garage where Silicon Valley beganThe second conditional for imagined situations
    2. Lesson 2Would you sell lemonade to save bees?Second conditional questions and If I were you
    3. Lesson 3Pitch it to the Sharks!First vs second conditional: a real plan or a dream?
    4. Lesson 4A bakery that hires anyone?Adding ideas: also, too, as well, either and besides

  2. Unit 2 Cities of tomorrow

    the passive in the present simple and the past simple, with modals, and in the present perfect and present continuous

    1. Lesson 5Can you cross a city without going outside?The present simple passive
    2. Lesson 6A park on top of a freeway?The past simple passive
    3. Lesson 7Can a desert city catch the rain?The passive with modals
    4. Lesson 8Can an old railroad become a park?The present perfect and present continuous passive

  3. Unit 3 Food for the future

    comparative and superlative adverbs, the future passive, verbs with prepositions, phrasal verbs with up, away and out

    1. Lesson 9Why did Carver tell farmers to plant peanuts?Comparative and superlative adverbs
    2. Lesson 10Lettuce from space?The future passive with will be
    3. Lesson 11Why do corn, beans and squash grow together?Verbs with dependent prepositions
    4. Lesson 12What happens to dining-hall leftovers?Phrasal verbs with up, away and out

  4. Unit 4 Memory and learning

    reported statements with say and tell, tense changes, time and place words, reported questions, requests and commands

    1. Lesson 13Can you train your memory?Reported statements with say and tell
    2. Lesson 14He got better but never rememberedReported statements about the past
    3. Lesson 15Can a TV show teach the alphabet?Reported questions
    4. Lesson 16Can you learn a new skill at 70?Reported requests and commands

  5. Unit 5 Customs and manners

    degree adverbs such as quite and pretty, the past perfect, the past perfect vs the past simple, make vs do

    1. Lesson 17To tip or not to tip?Adverbs of degree before adjectives and adverbs
    2. Lesson 18They'd already started without me!The past perfect: had + past participle
    3. Lesson 19What should you do at a powwow?Past perfect vs past simple
    4. Lesson 20How do you accept a lei?Make vs do: collocations to learn

  6. Unit 6 Art and design

    relative clauses with whose, non-defining relative clauses, relative clauses without a pronoun, when and why

    1. Lesson 21Art that moves in the airRelative clauses with whose
    2. Lesson 22A heart that sells a stateNon-defining relative clauses
    3. Lesson 23What would you paint on a city wall?Relative clauses without who, which or that
    4. Lesson 24Why does the sign say Hollywood?Relative adverbs: when, why and where

  7. Unit 7 Volunteers and changemakers

    verb + -ing or to, -ing as a subject and after prepositions, stop, remember, try and forget, prefer and would rather

    1. Lesson 25A day on, not a day off?Verb + -ing or verb + to
    2. Lesson 26The house that welcomed a neighborhoodGerunds as subjects and after prepositions
    3. Lesson 27A walk that lasted 24 hoursStop, remember, forget and try + to or -ing
    4. Lesson 28Head, heart, hands and healthPrefer, would rather and would prefer

  8. Unit 8 Adventure and challenge

    possessive 's vs of, must and can't for deduction, might, may and could for possibility, the meanings of get

    1. Lesson 29 · you're hereCould you climb a fourteener?Possessive 's, s' or of
    2. Lesson 30It must be here somewhere!Must and can't for deduction
    3. Lesson 31How did Houdini get out?Might, may and could for possibility
    4. Lesson 32A capital with no road inThe meanings of get

Questions about this lesson

What is the possessive 's?
The possessive 's is an apostrophe and s after the owner, showing that something belongs to or goes with it: Riley's backpack, Colorado's peaks, the crew's lunch. It works with people, animals, places, groups and time words: today's job. The B1 lesson Could you climb a fourteener? on edio.ai teaches it with the volunteers who repair Colorado's mountain trails.
When do you use 's and when s'?
Use 's for one owner and for plurals without -s: the volunteer's gloves, the children's trail, people's bags. For a plural that ends in -s, add only the apostrophe: the volunteers' gloves, the hikers' boots. So the volunteer's tools belong to one person, and the volunteers' tools to the whole crew. A table in Could you climb a fourteener? drills both.
What's the difference between 's and of?
's is for owners: people, animals, places, groups and time, as in Riley's gloves, the crew's truck and a day's work. Of is for parts of things and for long phrases: the top of the mountain, the end of the trail, the name of the trail they built. Never put 's after a long phrase, as in the trail they built's name.
Is it "childrens'" or "children's"?
It's children's, because children has no -s. A plural that doesn't end in -s takes 's, like a single owner: the children's trail, people's bags, the women's crew. Childrens' and childrens are both wrong. A quiz in Could you climb a fourteener?, a B1 lesson on edio.ai, puts all three side by side.
Is it "a days hike" or "a day's hike"?
It's a day's hike: time words take the possessive too. The same goes for today's job, tomorrow's weather and yesterday's long walk. With a plural time word ending in -s, the apostrophe goes after the s: two weeks' work, five years' work. In Could you climb a fourteener?, Longs Peak is a long day's hike, and the scheme lists a days hike among the common mistakes.
What is a fourteener?
A fourteener is a mountain peak more than 14,000 feet above sea level, also written 14er. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative counts 58 named fourteeners in Colorado; other lists count 53 or 54, because they leave out peaks that rise less than 300 feet above the low point joining them to a higher neighbor. The tallest is Mount Elbert, at more than 14,400 feet, and Colorado's tourism site says no fourteener is truly easy.
Who repairs the trails on Colorado's fourteeners?
Crews and volunteers of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, a nonprofit founded in 1994. Its paid crews build most new summit trails, with a youth corps and volunteers, and volunteers do much of the repair. Near the summits, tundra plants grow 10 to 1,000 times slower than plants lower down, so hikers' damage heals slowly. On Mount Bierstadt in 2025, crews took out about 2,700 screws by hand, because power tools aren't allowed in wilderness areas.
How do I teach the possessive 's to B1 students?
Go from one owner to many: the volunteer's gloves, then the volunteers' gloves, then the children's trail, and ask how many people own each thing. Add of for parts last. Could you climb a fourteener? on edio.ai goes from a feature and a day on a trail crew to the scheme, five drills and a chat that plans a hike.
What's a good game for practicing possessives?
Play a lost-and-found round with real objects: collect a few things from the class, hold each one up, and let students guess the owner with Is it Sam's? or Is it the twins'? The open boxes in Could you climb a fourteener? work as a speaking round too, with prompts like Describe the view from the top of the highest place you've ever been.
What's good homework for the possessive 's?
Pick sentences where the number of owners is clear: The boots belong to the hikers becomes They're the hikers' boots. Then add a text with a choice in every line. In Could you climb a fourteener? on edio.ai, all ten homework tasks check themselves, from a word match to the trail crew's post and Riley's reply to Lorraine.
How do you practice possessives one-to-one?
Pack for an imaginary trip together: the student lists what to bring and whose it is, such as my sister's rain jacket or my parents' car, and the teacher asks One person or more? The chat in Could you climb a fourteener? on edio.ai works alone: the student plans a hike with Eunice and picks replies with the right possessive.
Are there interactive exercises for the possessive 's?
Yes: a table and a chat that check every answer. Without an account, this page plays three parts of the B1 lesson Could you climb a fourteener? on edio.ai: Riley's day with Ferris on the trail crew, a table that asks for one owner or more than one, and Eunice's chat about a fourteener hike. The other exercises are locked.
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