Parts of Speech Activities

I don't know that I've run across many fun ways to teach the parts of speech either. However, I usually make up silly little stories myself, chuck full of whatever part of speech I'm covering that day. I then have the students go on a "scavenger hunt" in the story looking for that part of speech,and highlighting it whenever they find an example in the story.
I would suggest then listing them on a poster for that part of speech, brainstorming extras as a group after recording the ones found in the story. By the end of the unit, you'll have a poster for each part of speech with many examples for each! I hope this helps...

I don't have a lot of these games but one thing I did do was create a couple of "generic" game boards on poster board or in a file folder. Then I can use them for spelling words, reading, language, whatever. For instance, using the parts of speech, I make up cards with sentences on them and one word underlined in each. Then, as they travel around the board and have to pull a card from the pile, they have to read the sentence and identify what part of speech the underlined word is. I also use it with spelling words with two piles of cards and if they land on a certain type of square, they must pull from the card pile where they have to spell the word or tell the definition. If they land on another type of square, they have to pull from the other pile where they must name the syllables, give an antonym, homonym, synonym, etc., maybe put it in alphabetical order with 3 other words, etc. You could even combine the cards in one pile. I hope this helps. I also make file folder games from worksheets. If you have any questions or need more info, please e-mail me.

Play games with parts of speech like "around the world" with common and proper nouns or finding synonyms for particular part of speech, the card game, "spoons" with different parts of speech, charades with verbs or adjectives. Play the game "Scattegories" with parts of speech headings.

Have kids use a thesaurus and look up words to replace the overused word, "eat"
Then have them act out their eat words by eating pretzels to demonstrate their understanding of the various words (devour, nibble, gnaw, crunch, etc. )

Have relay teams race to place parts of speech under the correct headings on the board. Or you can use one part of speech (ex. adverbs and kids have to place then under the headings where? when? or how?

Noun relay: Start with a noun (kangaroo) Next person has to say a noun using the last letter of the previous word orange. Do it with proper nouns and other kinds of nouns too.

I do an activity using newspapers/magazines. I have students write a story or several sentences and go through a newspaper/magazine to cut out their nouns/verbs to use in their story this way they can visually see the nouns/verbs. It's fun for the kids b/c it really makes them ask is it a person/place/thing/action/etc.

No opinion about the scholastic thing, though.

Kids need to learn grammar, if for no other reason than it lets us speak to them in the language of language. It does not make better readers or writers though, so I don't make it more than a very small part of my instruction.

One of my favorite things to do is make students little "sentence fragments" with sentence strips. Then you have the kids physically move to complete the sentence. Every kid gets a sentence strip (or a word card, if you're doing parts of speech) and a marker. If you were doing dependent clauses, for instance, you could have two students holding the sentence parts that go around the dependent clause, then let the dependent clause "elbow" its way into the sentence. To teach parts of speech, have one group be the noun group, one group be the adjective group, and one group be the verb phrase group. Each kid in each group writes something on his sentence strip (in the noun group, they choose any noun--bear, shark, girl, whatever), everyone in the adjective group chooses a strong adjective, like stupendous, colossal, breathtaking, and in the verb phrase group, they write stuff like: danced till dizzy, sang like a bird, cried like a baby, that sort of thing. Then, you choose a noun to go up to the front of the room, the noun chooses an adjective, and the adjective chooses a verb phrase. Since no one is supposed to know what anyone else wrote, you end up with sentences kids find funny, like: The stupid bear ran around in circles. The slimy fish sang like a bird. This can be used to teach subject/predicate and complete sentences, as well.

You can also drill them on parts of speech and literary devices by dividing them into two teams (I do boys and girls) and taking turns asking for a verb, a noun, an adverb, a pronoun, etc. No helping is allowed, and the first team to get whatever score I'm going for gets some sort of reward, usually a handful of jelly beans or something like that. I throw literary devices in with the parts of speech.

As I said, I don't spend a lot of time doing this. Most of the time, we're reading and writing, but our state tests are in two weeks, and we will be spending some time on this, so I'm sure they know it.

If you would like to integrate some fun, technology, and art into your parts of speech lessons, try a Parts of Speech Tableau poster.

Students get in groups, and you assign the part of speech. If you have them, provide students with books about their assigned part of speech to research the definition, types, and examples.

Students create a poster with the definition, etc. on it, then take photos with a digital camera of a scene that will depict the part of speech.

Ex. One student group in the class studied conjunctions. They took a photo of a student eating a sandwich with ham AND cheese. They wrote a sentence below the photo describing the scene, and highlighted the word "and."

After the posters are decorated and complete, the class can judge the best ones. The winners of the poster contest have the opportunity to visit a younger grade level and present the parts of speech.

Hope this helps...the kids loved it.

Have you ever heard of the game Kaboom? I play this with my students constantly and they love it! They are always asking if they can play it. I've played so much over the years with my students that we have probably played it for every subject! Here is how you can play for parts of speech.

1. Get a coffee can or pringles can (a shoebox would even work). Tape or glue a sheet of paper around the can or box and write Kaboom on it.

2. Write on little sheets of paper words. These should be nouns, conjunctions, prepositions, verbs, adverbs, interjections, adjectives, etc. On some of them (I usually do between 3-7) write the word Kaboom on the slips of paper. Put the slips in the box or can.

3. Divide the students into groups. Have the first group go. They draw from the can or box. They discuss the answer with group. The answer will be the part of speech their word is. Have a time limit. When the time is up (or before), they have to tell you their word and the part of speech. If it is right, they keep it, if it is wrong they place it back in the can or box.

4. If the kaboom is gone, the group has to give up all of their slips. These go to the side (I don't put them back in the can because the game would take forever) At the end of the game (when all the slips are gone) have the students count their slips. The group with most slips wins.

I offered up as extra credit to my classes this project: make a game using the parts of speech--type of game, rules are up to you. I got a diverse selection of cool games!

I also have the students do a people hunt with parts of speech. Each student has a grid for all parts of speech--next to the name, they write a definition for the part, then in the square next to that, they put an example. Then they have to find 3 people who wrote down different examples, and they have to check to make sure those examples are correct. (I have them write down the examples along with people's names.)

Mad Libs are also great--I make overheads--and call out the parts needed, write their answers down, and then turn on the projector and read the story to them dramatically.

Our school performed "School House Rock" last spring. Even the youngest students (our school is K-8) can identify the parts of speech. I know it sounds simple, but just play the music as the kids come in and find the video or DVD and have a sub show it. It is a fun way to reinforce what you are teaching. I have also had a lot of luck with color coding and diagraming sentences.

I know your pain!!! I also teach 6th, although have spent most of my life in fifth. One thing I have done this year with my 6th graders is to do more games. This is an easy idea that can be readily adaptable to many skills.


1. Make cards on the computer using 3 x 5 index cards. Use the Word program--go under file,page setup, then paper size. Here you will find the arrow that will get you to index cards. You can set up the printer to accept these so that you can print off any number of one card. That way you can make enough for multiple groups to use the same game, each with their own set of cards.
2. On each card, print off a sentence with whatever part of speech in it that you want to review. Your sentences can be quite long to include all or most of your parts of speech.
3. Make an answer key for each set of cards on a separate piece of paper, so that each group can check themselves.

To play the game, each group picks a person to start. Roll the dice. If the player corrects names --say all the nouns-- in the sentence, the player adds the points rolled on the dice. If the nouns are incorrectly identified, the player goes backward.
The first player to a certain number--say 50--wins. Change the number according to the skill or time available.
I have used this same idea for many different English skills, from punctuation, to grammar, etc.

Hope this helps. I think my explanation was a little confusing, but it is the best I could do, without showing you.

I use a cooperative learning exercise from Spencer Kagan called Inside Outside Circle.
What you need:
Word cards with names of nouns on one side,
"noun" definition on the other.
(For verbs, write action words on one side, and "verb" definition on the other.)

You need atleast one card for each 2 players.

This is how it works:
Divide the class into two groups. One group will be the inside circle, and the other will be outside. Have the inside circle turn to face their outside circle partners.Give the outside circle partner a word card. The outside circle partner shows the word card. The inside partner reads the word and tells if the word is a verb or noun, and how they know. Partners self correct.
Then the inside circle moves one place clockwise to the next partner, and a new word.
Play several times, then have the inside circle switch with outside, so each player gets turns showing the cards.
My Third graders love this! We use this with math facts, and spelling practice, too!

Marcia Lee

i don't teach ONLY grammar --thank GOD!--but i am teaching it right now....here are a few things i'm doing:

trying to do hands on whenever possible--comparative/superlative--get a tall, taller, and tallest kid in front of the room; have them make 3-D prepositional phrases, sing grammar songs (i've founds some on internet, have some from OLD english series), we've played parts of speech people hunt (define parts of speech--give 1 example, then find 3 people with different examples; we played parts of speech SWAT (2 teams--1 representative from each team up at board with flyswatters--on overhead is displayed a grid of parts of speech--teacher calls out word: butterfly, underneath, yikes, mine--first person to swat the correct part of speech earns point)--this can be done with all sorts of topics--rocks, minerals, x tables....

we'll be playing parts of speech bingo, of course and i made some game (not really sure how i played it, and i'm annoyed that i didn't save it on the computer last year, because my only copy has the answers on it! so i have to redo for this year) anyway--it's something of a partner-find---where there are parts of speech/definitions on cards and then some examples and the kids have to find their partner--i'm at home right now wondering how i made 8 parts of speech (16 matches) into a game for 30 kids....i must have broken some of them down into proper/common nouns, helping/linking, action verbs...

also: acrostic poems with adjectives describing themselves, make a board game--there are lots of fun games out there--i know scholastic has several workbooks

hope those ideas help!

I have taught 6th grade LA for 10 years and have striven to make it as fun and stimulating as possible. I'm sure fun ideas will come to you with experience. I sometimes use funny worksheets published by Scholastic or Hot Fudge Monday. These practice sheets are a lot more fun than the dry ones you probably got with your textbook. Scholastic even has puzzle-style worksheets with mazes and such. If your school subscribes to Mailbox, this magazine has the occasional appropriate and fun activity for grammar (and lots of other subjects), but it is geared more to the elementary grades (4-5). I wish they had a middle school edition.

You can have the students draw the scene of a prepositional phrase and write the phrase on a sentence strip. You can have the kids write adjectives along with the comparative and superlative forms as mini-posters, post them in the hall and have people vote on their favorite, most unique adjective set.

I also use a computer program called Orchard. It is basically drill and kill but the kids enjoy it because it's on the computer. My kids take turns almost daily with this program working their way through the parts of speech or grammar problems.

About 10 years ago rockers and hip hop artists rerecorded a collection of Schoolhouse Rock songs and I use the "Mr. Morton" cut every year. It is a rap about subject and predicate. My kids always request this song! I have a preposition song too which you can find on the internet. It's just a collection of prepositions sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

If you can get some whiteboard slates and dry erase markers, kids will enjoy using them. I use them for DOL and occasionally (dare I admit it?) DIAGRAMMING!!! It may not be the be-all-end-all grammar practice, but diagramming appeals to a lot of kids. It is like a puzzle. It is like a graphic organizer. At the sixth grade level, I wouldn't get too elaborate, but the basic subject-verb-direct object plus modifiers is pretty easy for kids to comprehend. I project simple sentences and have the kids form groups of 2-3. The groups compete to correctly diagram the sentence on the whiteboard slates.

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!