Sentence Puzzles
Labeling and inserting parts of speech to sentences
Submitted by: Tera Horvath
On 8x11 pieces of paper, write one word per paper to create a sentence, such as "The dog ran." Then write various adjectives, adverbs, etc. on separate pieces of paper which could eventually be inserted into the sentence, such as "big," "away," "quickly," to create a more descriptive sentence ("The big dog ran away quickly."). Write as many different words that would be appropriate for what you are studying and for the number of students in your class (perhaps enough words for half the number in your class).
Choose students to go to the front of the room and hold up in order the words from the original short sentence. Then pick a another word from your pile and have another student stand in the correct spot for that word ("big" would stand between "The" and "dog"). Continue to do this with the other words, while also having the students identify and explain the parts of speech each time a word is added. This works best for identifying the subject and predicate of a sentence and for identifying adjectives and adverbs.