Учительница взяла указку и показала нам ударный слог на доске.

Учительница means female teacher, while учитель means male teacher.

Russian often marks biological sex in nouns for people:

• учитель = male teacher
• учительница = female teacher

Because the sentence uses учительница, the past-tense verbs also appear in the feminine form: взяла, показала.

In the past tense, Russian verbs agree with the subject in gender and number.

Here the subject is учительница, which is feminine singular, so:

• взял = he took
• взяла = she took
• показал = he showed
• показала = she showed

So the -а ending tells you the action was done by a feminine singular subject.

Because указку is the accusative case, used for the direct object of взяла.

The dictionary form is указка. It is a feminine noun ending in -а, and for singular feminine nouns like this, the accusative usually changes:

• nominative: указка
• accusative: указку

So:

• взяла указку = took the pointer

Указка is a pointer: the stick a teacher uses to point at things on the board or on a chart.

It comes from the idea of pointing/indicating. In a classroom context, it is not a vague “indication”; it is the physical pointer.

Because нам is the dative case, and показать commonly takes:

• the thing shown in the accusative
• the person it is shown to in the dative

So:

• показала нам = showed us
• literally: showed to us

Compare:

• мы = we
• нас = us (often accusative/genitive)
• нам = to us

This is an adjective + noun combination:

• ударный = stressed
• слог = syllable

They match each other in:

• gender: masculine
• number: singular
• case: accusative here, though for an inanimate masculine noun it looks the same as nominative

So:

• nominative: ударный слог
• accusative: ударный слог

Because слог is inanimate, masculine accusative singular usually looks just like nominative.

Historically it is related to удар = blow/stroke, but in grammar and pronunciation ударный means stressed.

So ударный слог is the normal linguistic term for stressed syllable.

This is connected with ударение, which means stress in the pronunciation sense.

Because на доске expresses location: on the board.

With на, Russian often distinguishes:

• на + accusative = motion onto something
• на + prepositional = location on something

So:

• на доску = onto the board
• на доске = on the board

In this sentence, the stressed syllable is being shown on the board, so Russian uses the prepositional form доске.

In practice, both ideas fit the context, but most naturally it means the stressed syllable was indicated on the board.

So the picture is:

• the syllable is written or visible on the board
• the teacher points it out there

Russian often leaves this kind of attachment slightly flexible when the meaning is clear from context.

They describe two completed actions in sequence:

1. she took the pointer
2. she showed us the stressed syllable

The perfective forms are:

• взять → взяла
• показать → показала

Perfective aspect is very common when narrating a chain of finished events.

If imperfective were used instead, the sentence would sound more like background, repetition, or process rather than a simple completed event.

Russian has no articles like English a/an/the.

So nouns such as:

• учительница
• указку
• ударный слог
• на доске

do not need any separate article word.

English must choose between a and the, but Russian leaves that to context. In this sentence, context makes it natural in English to say things like the teacher, the pointer, the stressed syllable, the board.

Russian often omits subject pronouns when the subject is already clear.

Since учительница is explicitly stated, adding она would usually be unnecessary:

• Учительница взяла указку... = The teacher took the pointer...
• Она взяла указку... = She took the pointer...

Russian prefers not to repeat the subject pronoun unless there is a reason to emphasize or contrast it.

No, Russian word order is relatively flexible because case endings show the grammatical roles.

This sentence has a very natural neutral order:

• Учительница = subject
• взяла указку = first action
• и показала нам ударный слог = second action
• на доске = location

You could move parts around for emphasis, but the original sounds straightforward and natural for narration.