Easy Ways to Teach Grammar

Easy Ways to Teach Grammar

No comments Grammar, Language, Parts of Speech

Our language is made up of all kinds of words and there is so much to learn about them. Nouns, plural nouns, irregular plural nouns, collective nouns, possessive nouns, verbs, past tense verbs, irregular past tense verbs, adverbs, and so much more!  Whether you're introducing a new skill or looking to review a previously taught skill, there are so many different ways to share this content with students.

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What follows are some of my favorite ways to teach and practice the various language skills included in the standards.

Picture Books
I love, love, love using picture books to introduce or reinforce a new language skill.  Picture books always capture the students' attention, so why not capitalize on that and use a book to help share a new language skill. There are tons of great books out there.

I love this Grammar Tales series!  I purchased it several years ago through a Scholastic book order, and I've been using them ever since.

I also love this series of books.   The illustrations are great and the content is thorough. Random tidbit, I purchased these through a vendor who used to sell books at our school on a weekly basis, but you can find them on Amazon. This link will take you to the Adjectives book, but if you scroll down the page a bit, you will find more titles in the series. :)

I also love Ruth Heller's books.  They are great for providing students with visuals when teaching parts of speech.  I usually check these out from our school library.

Tip: Check to see what your school librarian has on his/her shelves.  You might be pleasantly surprised at the variety of books available in your building.  :)

Hands-On Partner Activities
Once I introduce a skill, I like my students to practice it, but I try to look for opportunities that give them hands-on practice.  Task cards and match up games are just a few of my favorites.

When a skill is brand new, I like to set out task cards around the room.  I pair the students up and let them work together to answer the questions.  They enjoy working in pairs, and it's also a good way for them to learn from one another.

The game pieces shown in the above picture are from my Collective Nouns unit on TPT.
 
Match Up games are always fun. When we use them, I have the students make their matches and write them down.  Once they do that, they can use them to play a game (or two) of memory.  They love this!  And, it makes for another good time filler/review activity once they have experience with how to play/the skill being practiced.

This game is from my Plural Nouns unit on TPT.


Whole Group Activities


I Have, Who Has is one of my favorite whole group activities. Read more about this activity HERE. This amazing game can be used with any skill, in just about any subject area. What I love about this game is that it can easily be used to fill a small chunk of time.  Got 10 extra minutes one day?  Play I Have, Who Has!  You can review important content and it's fun!

You can grab the free game shown above by clicking HERE.

Quiz-Quiz-Trade (a Kagan strategy) is another favorite of mine.  Sometimes, I call this activity a "mingle."  It gets the kids moving around. It also gives the students an opportunity to interact as they read to one another.  You can read more about Quiz-Quiz-Trade HERE.  This game is also a quick one.  It lasts as long as you want it to last, making it the perfect time filler or warm up.

The game pieces shown above are part of my Arrrsome Irregular Verbs pack on TPT.

Another variation of a match up game, is Find Your Partner. Give each student a card with your content printed on it.  Their task is to mingle about the room and find the person whose card matches their card.  For example, someone with a singular noun written on their card would try to find the person with the plural form of their word and vice versa. The version shown below requires the students to match a phrase to its collective noun.  This activity is great for quickly reviewing content at the beginning of a lesson, and it gets kids up and moving. 

The game pieces shown in the above picture are from my Collective Nouns unit on TPT.


P.S. You don't need fancy cards like the ones shown!  Grab a marker and some index cards and make your own! I do this often and it's just as effective.  :)

Mad Libs
Mad Libs are the best!  The kids get a total kick out of them, and they are super quick (and fun) way to quickly review parts of speech. It's also a great way to encourage students to think of interesting words.

I remember my own second grade teacher sharing them with my class way back when.  Every day before lunch, we sat on the carpet and completed a hilarious story.

I like to start with Mad Libs, Jr. and work my way to the original Mad Libs.

Videos
This year, we have access to You Tube at school! It's been blocked for years. This has been a game changer, and a welcome change.  It's the little things, friends.  Now that we can use that site to show videos, I do.  With that said, it isn't always easy to find exactly what you're looking for and I don't show videos every day.  I show them when I find something of value. It's a nice way to mix things up.

Playing a video at the beginning of a lesson makes for a quick review of previously learned material.  If you show it at the end of the lesson, it could make for a great recap of that day's objective.
Tip: Be sure to preview any videos you show ahead of time.

I wish I had a mind blowing tip for how to search for amazing videos on You Tube, but I don't.  I just enter my search terms and look through the results.  However, there are a few channels out there that you might find helpful. :)

• The Grammarheads have lots of videos to choose from (but some aren't really grammar related).  The videos themselves aren't anything super exciting.  I mean, you definitely aren't watching a big budget music video, but the songs are great!  I like the Contractions song.  And, the Their, There, They're song.

•  The Grammaropolis channel has some fun videos.  They are mainly short cartoon videos. Some are full length songs and some are just short clips (no songs).

•  You can also find several School House Rock videos. I remember watching these when I was young.  I'm dating myself, but I'm OK with that.  

•  Check out Learning Upgrade too.  They have more than just grammar videos!  The adverb song is my favorite.

I hope you loved these easy ideas for teaching grammar in the classroom.  Be sure to grab the I Have, Who Has freebie, and pin the post for future reference.

Looking for some resources with hands-on and engaging activities to teach grammar?  Below are some resources you might find helpful.

 

DON'T FORGET IT, PIN IT! 

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Identifiying Complete Sentences and Addition Bingo: A Few Freebies

Identifiying Complete Sentences and Addition Bingo: A Few Freebies

6 comments Grammar, Language, math, math games, Writing

Happy Monday to you!  It really is a happy day because I have a few freebies to share with you!

Last week, we worked on identifying complete sentences and incomplete sentences.  One of the things we did was play a game of Two Corners, a variation on the game Four Corners.  Since we only had two categories, we only needed two corners: one for complete sentences and one for incomplete sentences.  I didn't make any signs for the corners.  I just told the kids which corner to go to for each category.  I gave each student a card with a sentence/incomplete sentence printed on it.

So sorry about that glare!

The students were tasked with reading the card and deciding if it was a complete or incomplete sentence and then going to their corner.  Once there, the kids checked each other's cards and I let a few volunteers share their cards with the whole group.

You can grab a copy of these cards by clicking here. Feel free to use as described above, or however you'd like!

Another fun activity my students did was make their very own bingo board to use when we play addition and subtraction bingo.  It's a big deal to make your own bingo card!  I tasked the students with numbering their boards using the numbers 0-20.  I told them that they did not need to use all of those numbers, and that they could use a number more than one time.  I laminated the cards so that we can reuse them throughout the year.

To play, I used addition and subtraction flash cards.  I simply pulled a flashcard out of a bag, read the problem, and the students covered the answer. Bingo is always such a hit with kids, and mine are so excited that they will get to use these boards often when we have "Fun Friday" time.

Click here to grab a copy of the bingo board.

Enjoy!

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Collective Noun Unit...Update Alert!!

Collective Noun Unit...Update Alert!!

3 comments Grammar, Language

Hey, everyone!  This is just a quick post to share an updated unit with you.  I'm getting ready to cover collective nouns with my students and I decided it was time to give my unit, A Collection of Collective Nouns, an update.

I always enjoy covering this skill with my students because it is a great way to expose them to new vocabulary.  Here's a look at what's included in this unit!

There is a mini book and poster that I like to use to introduce the concept of collective nouns.  The mini book is interactive!  There are also a few activity pages that you could use in class, for homework, or as an assessment tool.

A favorite whole group engagement activity in my classroom is Find Your Partner, so of course I included materials that could be used for this activity.  You could also use the cards in a game of memory.

Two new additions to the file include a game of I Spy and a class book (I love class books).

There are also some writing prompts, and, as always, suggestions for use are also included.  Here is a preview of the entire file.
 

If you already own this unit, be sure to head over to your "My Purchases" page on TpT to download the updated version.

If you don't own it, but would like to, click {HERE} to be taken to the product page on TpT. 

Toodles!

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iPhones and Alliteration

iPhones and Alliteration

13 comments Language, Popular Posts, Reading, Writing

I have had iPhones on the brain for a while. And because I've had them on the brain, I decided to have a little fun with them in the classroom.

So, why do I have iPhones on the brain?  (Bear with me, this is leading up to the alliteration portion of this post). Let me show you:

Clearly, it is time for a new phone.  Sadly, the extremely pathetic state of my poor phone is nothing new, it's been this way since last May-a whole year prior to upgrade eligibility.  I have been waiting and waiting to replace it. Thankfully it still works!

So, in my ongoing obsession over my phone, I came up with the idea of using an iPhone to teach alliteration. 

Now, I realize that the phone does not necessarily lend itself to alliteration, but there is certainly some fun to be had with the whole concept of texting!  So, that's what we did!  We created some alliterative text messages!  Here is one example. 

I like to use the book Superhero ABC to introduce the concept of alliteration.  The kids are always instantly hooked and laugh at almost every single page. The illustrations are very superhero-y and the phrases the author uses to describe each hero not only demonstrate the use of alliteration, but are quite funny and silly.

As I read the book, I stopped periodically to point out that I noticed that each page featured a phrase with several words that began with the same sound (or same letter).  When I was finished reading the book, I explained that the author used alliteration to write each phrase and then explained that concept.  Then, we worked together to write some alliterative sentences together on the board (oops, forgot to take a picture of that).

Next, I told the students that they would be writing their own alliterative sentence, iPhone style.  I showed them this iPhone template and explained that they would write their sentence as a text message.  We used think/pair/share to brainstorm ideas before actually getting started. This is the rough draft text screen that they used.

They wrote their sentence on the lines.   At the end of the activity, they read their sentences to a few classmates.  I collected their rough draft texts and checked them for spelling (I always edit their spelling for them when we hang work up on the board, of course, that doesn't always mean that they spell correctly on the final draft-hehe).  Finally, the students rewrote their text message on this template. 

Then, they colored their message blue, just like on a real iPhone, and glued their "screen" to a "body."

Before displaying all the iPhones on our bulletin board, I let each student read his/her sentence to the class.  Fun was had by all!  Some of their sentences turned out super silly. And, most of them wrote about a favorite book or TV character.

You can grab all of the templates for this activity by clicking here.

I hope you can use this idea in your classroom!

P.S. In case you were wondering, I was able to get myself a new phone.  Thank goodness for early upgrades!  All is well with the universe now.  

DON'T FORGET IT: PIN IT! 

 

Toodles!

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Halloween Adjectives...A Quick and Easy Idea

Halloween Adjectives...A Quick and Easy Idea

3 comments Grammar, Language

Today we reviewed adjectives. For some reason this part of speech has been a bit tricky for my group this year.  I'm not complaining though because I love adjectives and all the fun things you can do to teach/reinforce them.

Since tomorrow is Halloween, I had the students create a Halloween Adjectives book.  This book was completely student made.  That is, I did not create any sort of template.  Instead, I simply took two sheets of copy paper, folded them in half, and stapled along the fold.

After briefly reviewing what an adjective is (a word that describes a noun), we brainstormed a list of Halloween nouns on the board.

They made a cover using the title Halloween Adjectives.  On the inside, the students illustrated (and labeled) a Halloween noun.  Then, they wrote a list of 6 adjectives to describe that noun.

This student is my resident artist.  Her talent is undeniable and it is both amazing and fun to watch her create.  She never ceases to amaze me with her skills.

The students were allowed to consult with their "teaching buddies" as they created their books.   As I walked from table group to table group, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a student give a wonderful piece of advice to his teaching buddy.  She was stuck on her list of adjectives and needed two more to complete a list.  He suggested she think of some synonyms for some of the words she had already written down.  Love it!!

I know we've all had students make things from scratch over the years.  But, I think we sometimes forget just how much the kids enjoy it and just how effective a tool it is.

With that said, the kids loved this activity! They were bummed when they ran out of time and those who had time to spare asked if they could use the back cover as another page in their book.

I loved that it kept them engaged, had them thinking about adjectives (and synonyms), and that it was very minimal prep on my part.  It's also something that could be adapted for a variety of skills/themes!  My mind is already thinking about Thanksgiving....

Do you have any quick and easy/effective activities that you like to use with your students?

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