Making grammar interesting

[Miss C]

Hi Everybody~
I teach 6th grade, and the biggest problem I have is with Language. Our curriculum has a huge emphasis on grammar, and the kids are having a REALLY hard time with it. I love it that they're learning this stuff, because so many grown-ups still don't have it down. However, it's hard to make it fun and interesting. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks so much!

 

[Nadine]

making it fun

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.

 

[6th grade]

What are the names f the worksheet book you use. Some good sites I use to teach gramamr are Brain Pop.com and Grmmar Bytes.

 

[fun_friend]

some workbooks

Scholastic publishes several books that are fun: Comic Strip Grammar comes to mind. There are also some puzzle books for punctuation and grammar which consists of mazes and other sorts of puzzlers that I use now and then.

 

[fun_friend]

back from surfing

I checked out the grammar bytes site and liked it so well that I added it to recommended web pages on my Schoolnotes site. The Grammar Bytes site recommended an additional site you might visit called Big Dog's Grammar that seems equally fun.

 

[Miss C]

Thanks!

Thanks for the very helpful suggestions, everybody!

 

[mellon]

pronouns

I used Beatles songs to find pronouns. I had them create an menu when we studied adjectives. I have also had them cut up newspapers and magazines to find parts of speech and create collages.

 

[Sue2]

Grammar Grabbers

I used "Grammar Grabbers". I found it in Barnes and Noble. It's also on Amazon.com. The kids enjoyed them, even the my honor students who knew their grammar and were bored with the Language Book.

Also, and I can't find it again, I found it in a lesson plan place; a neat idea on how to teach dangling modifiers. I loved the activity. Basically, it listed about 50 sentences with catchy dangling modifiers, and then the kids were suppose to draw what they actually read. Real cute pictures! Then on the back of the picture was the corrected version. You then tied them all together and "dangled" them from the ceiling.

sue2

 

[helper]

song

I would use this song about above across after against along among around without before behind below beneth beside amid between but on but by concering in down during ezpect from on like near off of an out outside over past and through inside over until with without into onto toward under up AND for!!!!!!