[silpada girl]

I am looking for some interesting ways to review grammar. I do not like to use diitto sheets and the only other activities I can think of is doing poetry and having students identify the parts of speech. Also, if I photocopy pages of a read a loud book I am doing and we can review grammar that way. Any other suggestions?

[jensw]

I love using "Jabberwocky" to review parts of speech. They really have to understand the concept of each part of speech to identify the nouns, verbs, etc. in that poem! If there are students who disagree on a part of speech for a particular word, we can discuss why they think the way they do (and several words could logically be two different parts of speech depending on how you read the sentence).

I did that in 6th, 8th, and 10th. I'm not sure if it's too old for 5th, but I'm going to give it a try.

I also like breaking down the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence and having them find the subject and the predicate. We did that at a Grammar Seminar for teachers, and only twoof the 30participants were able to correctly identify them (I'd like to point out that I was one of the two ). That helps with identifying subordinate clauses and prepositional phrases.

I also do Preposition Puppy -- the kids pick a preposition and then draw a picture of what relationship a puppy has to rock. Examples: Above a rock -- the kid draws a puppy floating above a rock. Near a rock -- the puppy is an inch or two from the rock. Behind a rock -- a rock with puppy ears sticking out over it.

I don't have it with me, but there's a "Dear John" letter that reads two different ways depending on the punctuation that is used. You can probably find it on the internet. It's fun to give that letter to the kids and have them punctuate it "properly." Then they can compare letters with each other and see who punctuated a mushy, romantic letter and who punctuated a get lost letter. Also you can use the sentence "A woman without her man is lost." (A woman: without her, man is lost. ) I like to write the first version on the board and hear the cries of outrage from the girls, and then I write what I say is the "real" version. They 8th and 10th graders got a kick out of that. That might be over the head of 5th graders.

Finally, I have them go through magazines and newspapers and identify punctuation and grammar errors. I made that extra credit. If they brought in a "real life" example (not from an Internet site that collects bad grammar examples), they got a couple points extra and got to post it on a bulletin board.

Hope that helps!

[Margaret916]

I play school house rock grammar rock cd during free times and things -- the kids love it and it's amazing how much they learn!

"Interjections! Show excitement and emotions! They're generally set apart from the sentence by an exclamation point or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong."

They learn key ideas -- and can hum them back to themselves to remind 'em when they need it!

[lthompson]

Have you tried using Mad-Libs? My students love them and they're a great motivator for learning the parts of speech. I list the needed parts of speech in order on the board, and have all the students list words that meet the requirement on a sheet of notebook paper. I encourage them to think creatively of words they don't think anyone else will come up with. Then I randomly call on them to supply a word. When all blanks have been filled, I read the story using the words they supplied and we share the fun and laughter. They always beg for more, and are eager to answer correctly so their word will be used.
I've been able to find these books at our Scholastic Book Fair, at Books-a-Million, and sometimes online. Good luck!

[Grade4Teach]

I so love this! I have the movie and we watch it all the time. The kids make fun of it in the beginning and then they end of singing it and asking to watch it! I highly suggest using it!

Sometimes I have my students break into groups and write songs about the grammar concept that was just learned.

We've also done some improv with grammar review. One example of this is Q&A. Have two volunteers come up to the front. One has to ask the other one a question. Then the other person has to answer it with say a compound sentence. Set whatever requirements you want for the person who asks and answers. Have the other students put thumbs up if they did it correctky or thumbs down if they didn't.