Grammar Games – The Perfect Way for Students to Practice Sentence Writing with Nouns

Thirty Four. That’s the number of language arts Common Core standards in 3rd grade. From literature and informational text standards to writing to speaking & listening to language. Whew! That’s A LOT. Sometimes skills like grammar get pushed aside due to time. Smart and savvy teachers learn over time to integrate multiple standards into meaningful tasks that give students the time to practice. Sometimes it’s hard to plan these activities with the short amount of time teachers have for planning. But it can be done – especially if there are resources like Building Sentences with Nouns. 

I designed and created this resource to be used in literacy centers throughout the school year. I wanted my students to practice really good sentence writing with a focus on the basic structure of subject, verb, and complete idea. But I didn’t want them just writing sentences for practice – too boring and too low level. 

The other aspect of sentence writing that I never liked was most students aren’t going to write really good sentences with rich vocabulary. They use words that are familiar to them and stay with those words over and over – until they are exposed to new vocabulary. If we want them to become good writers, we need to insist that they write better and better sentences and that starts with using good vocabulary. 

This game incorporates all the things I wanted for my students – practice writing really good sentences, better vocabulary, and practice with grammar standards. This particular game gives students practice with the language standard for regular and irregular nouns for both singular and plurals – ELA.Literacy.L.3.1.A and 3.1B.

HOW TO PLAY

The game can be played by 2-4 students and can be repeated throughout the school year. Students role a die and move around the game board following the directions on the spots they land on. At each spot on the game board, students will use nouns to write really good sentences on their skyscraper worksheet.  The game is over when they have written 10 sentences or time runs out. In that case, they can visit this center again in order to complete the skyscraper. 

This game is perfect for centers because you can teach them one time how to play and they can manage it independent of you – which means you feel good about the task and not worry about constantly monitoring their activity. I’ve included reference sheets that students can use in the center to guide them with the key elements of a sentence (subject, verb, complete idea) as well as a noun reference sheet to remind them of the different meanings of singular verses plural nouns with examples. #win-win

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