Wednesdays Short Daily Writing:Grammar

Wednesdays:Grammar
I have a confession.  I love grammar, and I dread teaching it to my kids.  No one wants to hear the groans and to be made to feel like Torturer-in-Chief.  That's why I think doing it for 10-15 minutes every Wednesday morning is perfect.  I taught remedial English to community college freshmen who either were ESL or scored really poorly on the ACT/SAT.  I found that if I kept it straightforward, and left out all the crazy grammar vocabulary, they got it!   My kids range in age and have a variety of special education needs, so I've geared it to (hopefully) work for all of them.  Be sure to remind your students of capitalization and punctuation whenever they write.  For my 7 year old son with Autism, many of the exercises will not be written.  We'll make the corrections together since small amounts of writing overwhelm him.  Here is my outline for teaching basic grammar to competent readers of any age in 36 weeks:

Section 1:Identifying Prepositional Phrases
Why start here?  We start with prepositions because identifying and crossing out prepositional phrases will make it MUCH easier for your students to identify the subject and verb.  And identifying subjects and verbs is critical for correct punctuation.  Here's a List of Prepositions to print out for your student to have on hand to accomplish the following work.

Week 1: Watch this video about Prepositions and write down 15 prepositions
Week 2: Hunting for Prepositions To save time, hide the eggs (or objects of your choice) the night before.
Week 3: Print this Prepositions Worksheet
Week 4: Print this Prepositional Phrases Worksheet
Week 5: Print this Identifying Prepositional Phrases Worksheet
(You want to make sure your kids are REALLY good at this because it will make everything else so much easier! Don't move on until they have it.) Have your kids take this quiz to find out if they've got it.

Section 2:Identifying Subjects and Verbs
Students need this skill to make sure they are forming sentences correctly.  Each sentence has to have a subject and a verb.  If it doesn't, then it isn't a complete sentence.  Identifying subjects and verbs helps students know how to fix sentence fragments, place end punctuation correctly, and properly use commas.  Don't worry.  We'll get to all of that!  For now, just help your kids to identify subjects and verbs.  Removing prepositional phrases from any sentence will make this much easier, so always have them start there.  Then we work on finding the verb.  Kids are usually pretty good at finding the action word.  Then they just need to ask "Who or what did the action?"  That will help them find the subject quickly.  Many kids can quickly find the subject and verb, and this might seem like a convoluted way of getting there, but this method is really effective for students that struggle with grammar.

Week 6: Identifying Verbs and Nouns (a good short brush up!)
Week 7: Identifying Verbs (Be sure to cross out the prepositional phrases first.)
Week 8: Identifying Linking Verbs
Week 9: Identifying Helping Verbs (Have the students write the verb including the helping verb: "has promised, etc."
Week 10: Subject and Verb Matching Game
Week 11: Identify Subjects
Week 12: Identifying Subjects and Verbs (Tell your students "predicate" is another way to say "verb.")
Week 13: Identifying Subjects and Verbs
Week 14: Complete Sentence?
Week 15: Complete Sentence or Fragment?
Week 16: Complete Sentence or Fragment?
Week 17: Writing Sentences Formula  Have the students formulate 5 sentences and identify the subject, verb, and prepositional phrases.

Section 3: Basic Punctuation--Capitalization, Periods, Question Marks, Exclamation Points, Commas, and Quotations.
Hopefully you been making note anytime your child is writing of basic capitalization and end punctuation rules.  We'll do a short, official review of these subjects before moving on to commas and quotation marks.

Week 18: Capitalization Game Print out these Capitalization Rules to refer to while playing.
Week 19: Play the Capitalization Board Game again.  Can you remember the rules?
Week 20: Ending Punctuation
Week 21: Follow the instructions for the Modeling/Mini-Lesson with this Run-on Sentence
Week 22: Run-on Sentences
(Since I'm trying to provide links to free resources and couldn't find a good one, I thought I'd write up some quick exercises here for run-on sentences.)
Exercise 1
Instructions: Find the 2 complete thoughts in each problem.  Rewrite the thoughts as two separate. sentences.

1. Megan didn't like broccoli she thought it smelled like stinky feet.
2. She also didn't like zucchini it seemed like some weird combination of broccoli and kiwi.
3. Anything green in color appeared suspicious she distrusted anything that color.
4. But something happened that changed her mind it's a long story.

Week 23: Run-on Sentences
Exercise 2
Instructions: Find the 2 complete thoughts in each problem.  Rewrite the thoughts as two separate sentences.

1. Megan was left to babysit her brothers and sisters they were so hungry!
2. She opened the fridge there was nothing but green food.
3. She had no choice she had to cook some broccoli to stop their crying.
4. The baby wouldn't eat any unless Megan took a bite first she faked a smile and put some in her mouth.
5. Megan decided that anything green can be made delicious you just have to smother it in yellow butter first.

Week 24: Fixing Run ons with Commas and F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. 
     We can fix run-on sentences by adding a comma and a conjunction.  For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So are all conjunctions, but I just call them F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.  Memorize them!  If you only put a comma and not one of the F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. between two complete thoughts, it's called a comma splice and is a big No-No! Try fixing the sentences about Megan by adding a comma and a F.A.N.B.O.Y.S
Exercise 1

Instructions: Connect the two thoughts with a comma and one of the F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.  Your student may want to use the word "because" in some of these sentences. They can, but make sure they know that we NEVER put a comma before the word "because." 

Example: Megan was a picky eater she rarely ate her vegetables.

Fix: Megan was a picky eater, so she rarely ate her vegetables.

1. Megan didn't like broccoli she thought it smelled like stinky feet.

2. She also didn't like zucchini it seemed like some weird combination of broccoli and kiwi.

3. Anything green in color appeared suspicious she distrusted anything that color.

4. But something happened that changed her mind it's a long story.

Week 25: Fixing Run ons with Commas and F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. 

Exercise 2

Instructions: Connect the two thoughts with a comma and one of the F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.  

Example: Megan was a picky eater she rarely ate her vegetables.

Fix: Megan was a picky eater, so she rarely ate her vegetables.

1. Megan was left to babysit her brothers and sisters they were so hungry!

2. She opened the fridge there was nothing but green food.

3. She had no choice she had to cook some broccoli to stop their crying.

4. The baby wouldn't eat any unless Megan took a bite first she faked a smile and put some in her mouth.

5. Megan decided that anything green can be made delicious you just have to smother it in yellow butter first.

Week 26: Joining Words (Subordinating Conjunctions) and Commas

Words like after, although, as, because, before, how, if, once, since, than, that, though, till, until, when, where, whether, while might be the perfect way to fix a run-on sentence.  For example, "Megan didn't like broccoli because she thought it smelled like stinky feet."  If any of the above words is in the middle of a sentence, do not put a comma in front.  If it comes at the beginning of a sentence, put a comma after the thought. Example: "Because she thought it smelled like stinky feet, Megan didn't like broccoli."

Exercise: Place the commas in any sentence that needs one.
1. I really want to go to the zoo because they have a baby giraffe.
2. Because the baby is so small they are keeping her and her mother in a special place.
3. If we go to the zoo we need to make sure we bring some money.
4. I'm planning on buying a toy giraffe so I can play with it at home.

Week 27: More Joining Words and Comma Practice (Do at least 1-5)
Week 28: Commas in a Series
Week 29: Commas with Non-Essential Info (Do Section 4)
Week 30: Commas and Quotation Marks (Do Section 5)
Week 31: Commas and Introductory Elements (Do Section 6)
Week 32: Commas and Places (Do Section 7)
Week 33: Commas and Dates (Do Section 8)
Week 34: Contractions Match Game
Week 35: Comma Chameleon Game
Week 36: Review

Exercise:
Fix any problems in the following sentences:
1. my dad loves ice cream brownies and cobbler
2. if your dad ate everything at once do you think he'd get sick
3. it makes me sick just thinking about it, because i ate too much at the party
4. i'm hoping for pumpkin cookie I could eat a pile of them
5. empty promise