Extend the Lesson: Thanksgiving Fun with Grammar Printables
What happens when you mix adjectives, adverbs, and a little holiday fun? You get a creative activity that gets students thinking about parts of speech while laughing at the silly stories they create! A Mad Libs-inspired worksheet is a fun way to help students practice identifying adjectives and adverbs while putting their creativity to work.
Take a look at this free holiday printable I found online. With just a few easy steps, you can turn it into a classroom game or a springboard for story writing!
- On the board, list the number of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. that are needed to complete the paragraph.
- Have students find the appropriate words to go with each part of speech.
- Then, hand out the fill-in-the-blank worksheet and have your students transfer their words to the paragraph.
- With a partner or small group, have your students share their creative (and maybe even silly) paragraph!
- Writing Activity Suggestion:
a) Have students create their own paragraph about the holidays.
b) Then, ask them to erase specific parts of speech throughout the paragraph and draw a line to replace the empty space.
c) Ask them to label the line with the part of speech that is now needed to fill in the blank.
d) Next, have students swap papers with a partner and fill in the blanks.
e) Finally, have students read their paragraphs to each other.
I encourage you to try this fun activity in your classroom. It’s a sure way to add a little spice to your holiday lessons!
Do your students need help with grammar?
Many students seem to have a difficult time locating even the most basic parts of speech, like the Subject Noun and Verb. If they’ve had little to no grammar instruction in grades 1-8, it’s no surprise. With that being said, there is a curriculum that can completely turn a grammar deficit around. It’s Shurley English.
Shurley English teaches students about the parts of speech and then uses a very unique and effective strategy called the Question and Answer Flow (Q&A Flow) to help students label and classify the role each word plays in a sentence. Shurley English teachers are given a very specific script to follow to help students learn the Q& A Flow. Once learned, labeling the parts of speech becomes pretty simple and fun!
The Q&A Flow helps students master sentence analysis. As they learn the order of operations, which locates the core parts of the sentence first, other descriptive words in the sentence fall into place. Repetition of the Q&A Flow allows the brain to make sense of how each and every word works together to make a complete thought. Once students have a solid understanding of how words work together to build sentences, it is easier for them to identify parts of speech outside of the Shurley English curriculum. We invite you to learn more by visiting www.shurley.com.
