Building a Sentence

 

Day 2: What does a Sentence tell us?  We learned that sentence tells WHO and WHAT THE WHO IS DOING.  We did lots of examples that helped us learn that the who does not have to be a person.

 

 

 

Day 3: All About Blueprints.  After reviewing what we learned so far, we spent a few minutes talking about blueprints.  We learned how important it was for a builder to follow the blueprint if they want their project to go as planned.  Then we learned about the Blueprint for a Sentence.

Day 4: We reviewed the important blueprint for a sentence and then practiced putting sentences in order according to the blueprint.  We did some on the Mimio as a group and then the kids went back to put their own sentences in order.

 

 

 

Day 5: Today was the day to put into action everything we had learned.  I found this adorable Sentence Buddy at Stephanie Stewart’s Teachers Pay Teachers Store. 

 

 

I tweaked the idea just a little to fit kindergarten and our construction theme.  We started by singing the song in Stephanie’s packet.  Then I sent the kids off to write a good sentence.  Here’s what we did to make our construction workers.  The students used an orange sentence strip to write their sentence.  Why orange? Because all construction workers wear an orange safety vest, of course.  The students had to write their sentence in order to earn the parts of their construction worker.  If they started their sentence with a capital letter (and there were no other capitals in the sentence) they earned the head and hard hat (copied on yellow).  If the sentence ended with an end mark they earned the work boots.  If they had spaces between their words they earned the arms (plain strips of paper – since we did not go into noun and verb).  My conferencing would sound something like this:  “Oh that is a great sentence.  I can give you a head and some arms, but no feet.”  They would immediately take their sentence and fix it!  Here was the final product. 

 

 

 

The entire week was a lot of fun!  Better yet, my kids remember and understand how to write a sentence.  Now its time to transfer that knowledge into writer’s workshop. 

 

I think this has been one of my favorite lessons so far this year.  What lessons do you love teaching?  Leave me a comment with your favorite lesson, e-mail address and format (.pdf or .ink) preference by Friday, February 8, 2013 (11:59 p.m.) and I will e-mail you the Building a Sentence lesson!  Don’t forget to download the Sentence Buddy from Stephanie’s store – it’s not in my lesson!