Silly Sentence Fun for November

Last week, I finished up this new Thanksgiving resource. I developed it to use with my students because we've been working on writing complete sentences.  I wanted them to practice deciding if a sentence was complete by identifying the who part and the what part of a sentence.

I finally got to use this activity with my children today.  We did it first as a whole group activity, and then I put it into our literacy center rotation for this month.  It really is perfect because there are so many different combinations of sentences the children can make.

So I ran off the color saving option in totally black and white.  I put each sheet into a wipe off pocket. 

We used the paperclip spinners to find a word or phrase on each spinner.  Then we put the words together in the order of the spinners.  The first time we spun, we came up with "sailed hunted corn and stuffing."  The kids decided that was not a sentence because it didn't tell us who. 

The second spin, we got the words "the pilgrims ate corn and stuffing"  The kids agreed that was a sentence because it told us who -- the Pilgrims and what ate corn and stuffing.  All right.  Now to write it correctly on the recording sheet!  After everyone finished writing the sentence, I showed them how to check it using the check boxes and fix the sentence if necessary.  

After a few more non-sentence spins, we spun "the mayflower cooked in the forest."  At first, some of the children said it wasn't a sentence, and some said it was.  So we applied the test.  Does it tell us who?  Yes - The Mayflower.  Does it tell us what it does?  Yes -- cooks in the forest.  So it's a sentence, albeit a silly sentence!    Don't you just love the picture of the Mayflower cooking in the forest?  Again, the children wrote the sentence and used the check boxes to check for capitalization and ending punctuation.  We continued on in this manner until we had four sentences written and proofread for capitalization and end marks. The favorite silly sentence was "Turkeys cooked the spider."   Then the children illustrated the sentences.  

I was so pleased with the way this activity turned out.  The children were engaged and attentive the whole time.  They loved the novel approach of spinning a sentence and deciding if what they spun was really a sentence. Now that they know how to use it, I'm anxious to put the activity into centers for November and hear them working through the process themselves!

In addition to the center work, there are 8 pages of follow-up black and white activities that practice and reinforce complete sentences.  

If you would like to try out these activities with your students, click on the picture above and visit my TpT store.  There is a FREE SAMPLE included in the preview!

Have a great day, everyone!