Grammar activities gr 3-5

Grammar Activities That Really Grab 'Em © Sarah Glasscock, Scholastic Teaching Resources

That Really

Grades 3–5
SARAH GLASSCOCK

SARAH GLASSCOCK

New York • Toronto • London • Auckland • Sydney
Mexico City • New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires

Scholastic Inc. grants teachers permission to photocopy the reproducible pages from this book for classroom use. No other part of this
publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission,
write to Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

Editor: Sarah Longhi
Copy editor: Jeannie Hutchins
Cover design: Maria Lilja
Interior design: Melinda Belter

ISBN-13: 978-0-545-11265-9
ISBN-10: 0-545-11265-6

Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Glasscock.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic.

Printed in the U.S.A.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 40 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

All About Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 5

All About Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

All About Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

All About Adjectives and Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

All About Prepositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

All About Singular and Plural Nouns and Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. 35

All About Subjects and Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

All About Phrases and Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

All About Elaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

All About Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Introduction
It can be hard to convince students that grammar is a living, breathing thing that reflects
not only the history of our language but also how language and its rules change in our
contemporary lives. For example, today we try to use language more precisely to reflect the
changes in our society by replacing policeman or fireman with police officer or firefighter. (We’re
still grappling with the wordiness of pairing everyone with the possessive pronouns his and
her.) Grammar is simply a set of rules that helps us write and speak clearly so that others can
understand what we mean. The aim of this book is to present an overview of major topics that
will give your students tools to become better writers and speakers.

How to Use This Book
The book contains a mini-lesson for ten important grammar topics:

• Nouns • Singular and Plural Nouns and Verbs
• Pronouns • Subjects and Predicates
• Verbs • Phrases and Clauses
• Adjectives and Adverbs • Elaboration
• Prepositions • Sentences
Each mini-lesson contains the following elements to support your teaching:
4 A teaching page that focuses on introducing and defining the topic, teaching it in
conjunction with a model passage, and applying it. A quote related to the topic begins
each lesson and can be used as a springboard for introducing, discussing, or applying the
grammar topic.
4 A short model passage that shows important aspects of the grammar topic in action.
You may want to display the passage onscreen to introduce or review the featured grammar
points. Students can also keep this page in their notebooks or writing portfolios to guide
them in their own writing.
4 Two writing prompts that encourage students to write and share their work. You
can photocopy the prompts on card stock and then cut them apart for students, write the
prompts on the board, or display them onscreen. With the Rest of the Class tips help students
extend their thinking by sharing their work with their peers.
4 Three activities for the whole class, small group, pairs, or individuals that give students
hands-on practice with the grammar topic. These activities require minimal preparation and
appeal to a variety of learning styles; for example, students may play games, chant, or write ads
and plays. Use the discussion tip With the Class to invite students to discuss the topic further.
4 A reproducible activity sheet that goes with the activity featured in the Apply section
of each teaching page.
You’ll find some overlapping of topics. It’s impossible, for example, to talk about subjects and
predicates without talking about nouns, pronouns, and verbs, and it’s impossible to talk about
sentences without talking about all the other grammar topics in the book.
Immerse your students in an overview of each grammar topic or dive more deeply into one
aspect. I hope this book encourages your students to see the powerful effect that grammar has
on our words—and the effect we all have on our language.

4

All About Nouns

] The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate
noun out of a tight place.
—William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White

You could say that a sentence revolves around its nouns. They tell
the who or the what of a sentence. This mini-lesson focuses on the
following aspects of nouns:
• singular and plural nouns
• common and proper nouns

• possessive nouns
• descriptive nouns

Introduction
Begin the mini-lesson by writing a short definition and example
of a noun on the board, for example, “A noun names a person, Ruby, a rub
y-throated
hummingbi
flowers cau rd, darted

animal, place, thing, or idea: Chester is a poodle. He loves the
ght her atte 1 through
ntion. Wit the garden
Then, wit h her slen . The sag
hout loo der bill, Rub e bushes
king, the y sipped ’ red
“Ouch! Ou tiny bird the nectar 2
zoomed out of the
ch! OUCH backward
!” Zeke, and ran SM flowers.
“Sooo sor the bum ACK into

freedom of chasing butterflies in the wheat field behind his ry,” the hum 3 blebee, bum a bumble
mingbird bled. “W bee.
a nearby hummed. atch where
tree caught Then two you’re goi
her attentio bird feeder ng!”
Yellow pla n. One wa s in
stic flowers s filled wit
decorated h red sug

doghouse.”
one of the the feeder ar water.
flowers to . The bird
drink the slipped her
Zeke lan 4 sugar wa bill through
ded on the ter.
flower’s feeder, too
petals we . He tried
5 re too har to suck the
“Plastic!” d. They we nectar out
the bum re so har of a yellow
blebee spa d that the flower. The
Zeke slid t. Then he y bent his
Grammar

his long tasted the stinger and

Teach
tongue thro sugar wa made it cro
Suddenly, ugh the ter on his oked.
the bum center of tongue.
Activities

blebee hea the plastic Very care
down to flower and fully,
the grass. 6 rd an ang drank dee
Above him ry hum, ply.
felt a sha
That Reall

to thieves , the hum rp pain in
,” Ruby mingbird his side,
hummed. flew around and tum
7
the feeder bled
Zeke buz
y Grab ‘Em!,

zed in ang . “That’s
er. He had what hap
Fighting as much pens
for his turn right to drin

Distribute copies of the model passage “The Bumblebird and
at the fee k from the
the bee fou der seeme
Grades 3–5

d only fair feeder as
ght. Finally . Poking, that flighty
8 , they hit pushing, bird did.
each oth prodding,
er so har the bird
d that the
© 2010 by

“That hur y both fell and
ts!” the bee to the gro 8

the Hummingbee” on page 7 to students. Ask them to follow looked at hummed. und.
each oth “That hur
er in surpris ts!” the bird
Sarah Glass

Since tha e. buzzed.
They
t day, the
bumblebird
their foo and the hum
cock, Schol

d with eac 9

along as you read it aloud. Then use the teaching guide on
h other. mingbee
have alw
9 ays shared
astic Teach
ing Resou

page 6 to discuss how the writer used nouns in
rces

the passage.
(Also see the lessons on pronouns, pages 11–16;
singular and plural nouns and verbs, pages 35–40;
and elaboration, pages 53–58.) Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_______
Date ___
______

Apply
________

Who are
you? Des
cribe you
rself. Use
as many
different
nouns as
you can.

Hand out the Who Are You? reproducible on page 10.
After going over the directions, model a few responses
that describe yourself, for example, person, teacher,
hiker, cook, reader, deejay, and so on. In your
rces
ing Resou

response, include nouns that will encourage
astic Teach
cock, Schol

students to realize how many different nouns
Sarah Glass
2010 by

they can use to describe themselves.
©
Grades 3–5
y Grab ‘Em!,
That Reall
Activities
Grammar

5

Singular and Plural Nouns
A singular noun refers to one person, place, animal, idea, or thing. A plural noun refers to
more than one.
KEY POINTS TEACHING WITH THE MODEL PASSAGE
• egular plural nouns are formed by adding –s
R 4 A sentence can have a combination of singular
or –es to the end of a singular noun. and plural nouns in it. In this sentence, bird, bill,
• rregular plural nouns such as children, women,
I one, and water are singular. Only the noun flowers
men, activities, and sheep don’t fit this pattern. is plural.

• ake a class list of the irregular plural nouns
M 7 Thieves is an irregular noun. The singular form
that students come across in their reading. of this noun is thief. Instead of adding –s to the end
of thief, you change the final f to v and add –es.

Common and Proper Nouns
A common noun doesn’t refer to a specific person, place, animal, thing, or idea. A proper
noun does.

• common noun is preceded by a definite or
A 3 The bumblebee’s name is Zeke, which is a
indefinite article—the, a, an. proper noun.
• A proper noun is always capitalized. 6 The writer used the common noun bumblebee
• common noun is only capitalized if it begins
A here, but, for variety, she also could have used the
a sentence. proper noun Zeke.
8 These two common nouns are parallel. It would
be strange to use one common noun and one
proper noun in this sentence.

Possessive Nouns
A possessive noun tells who or what owns something.

• ossessive nouns indicate ownership; the
P 2 To make the plural noun, bushes, possessive,
flower’s petals means the same as the petals of add an apostrophe: bushes’.
the flower. 5 To make the singular noun, flower, possessive,
• ingular possessive nouns are formed by adding
S add an apostrophe s: flower’s.
’s to the end of the singular noun: flower’s.
• lural possessive nouns are formed by adding
P
an apostrophe to the end of the plural noun:
flowers’.

Descriptive Nouns
animal dog poodle Chester: The more specific you are in describing someone or
something, the more your reader will enjoy your words.
Ask students to think about a story that only 1 Instead of writing tiny bird, fast bird, or just bird,
uses the bird for the main character. To be the writer tells exactly what kind of bird it is.
more specific and descriptive, the writer could
9 The writer has made up two nouns—bumblebird
substitute the kind of bird it is—hummingbird—
and hummingbee—to describe what happened
and give it a human name—Ruby. Then the
when the bird and bee fought.
writer could use three different nouns to
describe the bird.

6

MODEL PASSAGE

Nouns

The Bumblebird and the Hummingbee
Ruby, a ruby-throated hummingbird, darted through the garden. The sage bushes’ red
1 2
flowers caught her attention. With her slender bill, Ruby sipped the nectar out of the flowers.
Then, without looking, the tiny bird zoomed backward and ran SMACK into a bumblebee.
“Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!” Zeke, the bumblebee, bumbled. “Watch where you’re going!”
3
“Sooo sorry,” the hummingbird hummed. Then two bird feeders in

a nearby tree caught her attention. One was filled with red sugar water.
Yellow plastic flowers decorated the feeder. The bird slipped her bill through
one of the flowers to drink the sugar water.
4
Zeke landed on the feeder, too. He tried to suck the nectar out of a yellow flower. The
flower’s petals were too hard. They were so hard that they bent his stinger and made it crooked.
5
“Plastic!” the bumblebee spat. Then he tasted the sugar water on his tongue. Very carefully,
Zeke slid his long tongue through the center of the plastic flower and drank deeply.
Suddenly, the bumblebee heard an angry hum, felt a sharp pain in his side, and tumbled
6
down to the grass. Above him, the hummingbird flew around the feeder. “That’s what happens
to thieves,” Ruby hummed.
7
Zeke buzzed in anger. He had as much right to drink from the feeder as that flighty bird did.
Fighting for his turn at the feeder seemed only fair. Poking, pushing, prodding, the bird and
8
the bee fought. Finally, they hit each other so hard that they both fell to the ground.
8
“That hurts!” the bee hummed. “That hurts!” the bird buzzed. They
looked at each other in surprise.
Since that day, the bumblebird and the hummingbee have always shared
9 9
their food with each other.

A noun names a person, place, animal, idea, or thing. In this passage,
you’ll see:
• common and proper nouns • singular and plural nouns
• possessive nouns • descriptive nouns

7

WRITING PROMPTS

Nouns
Teachers: Duplicate these prompts on sturdy paper and then cut them apart. You may also write the prompts on the board or display them onscreen.
$ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -

Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

One or More Than One?
Write! Think of something that you’d really, really, really, really love to have. Then answer
this question: Would you like to have just one of these things—or would

you like more than one?
When you’ve finished writing, read over your work. Did you use Wr ite yo ur
full resp on se
singular nouns in the right places? Did you use plural nouns in the
on a sepa ra te
right places? Do all your subjects and verbs agree? sh eet of pa per.
With the Rest of the Class: Talk about the different things that
everyone wants. Decide how to sort them into groups. Who do you think
is most likely to get his or her wish? Which wish is the most fantastic or fanciful?

$ -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

Guess That Noun
Write! Choose a person, animal, place, idea, or thing to write about. In other words,
pick a noun. Write a description of it—but don’t use the noun in your
writing. You can use synonyms for the noun or other parts
Wr ite yo ur
of speech to describe it. Exchange your description with
full resp on se
a partner. Are you able to guess which noun your on a sepa ra te
partner is describing? sh eet of pa per.

With the Rest of the Class: Talk about how you used the clues in
your partner’s work to figure out what the noun is.

8

Activities: Nouns
Noun-Toss Ball Game
Materials: tennis ball or other small ball
Supply the group with a common noun for each round of play. To begin a round, say
a common noun, such as building, and toss the ball to a student in the group. That
student thinks of a more specific noun, such as house, and tosses the ball to someone
else in the group. Then the second student thinks of another noun that’s even more specific—or
a proper noun—and tosses the ball to someone else in the group. If that student can’t think of
a noun, another round of play begins. The student holding the ball thinks of a new common
noun, such as shoe, and tosses the ball. Record the nouns and keep score: Teams earn 3 points
for a proper noun, 2 points for a more specific noun, 1 point for a new common noun.

With the Class: Discuss which common nouns had the longest and shortest lists of specific
nouns. Ask: Did you learn any new descriptive nouns that you’d like to use in your own writing?

A Singular and Plural Picture Book
Materials: drawing paper, colored markers or colored pencils, crayons, folder, hole punch
Assign one or more different letters of the alphabet to each
A is for aardvark.
student. Then have your class write an alphabet animal picture
book for younger readers. Each student should think of an
animal whose name begins with each assigned letter. Encourage them to 1 aardvark
think of unusual animals that younger readers might not know. Each page
should also include the singular and plural forms of the noun that names
the animal. Give students the model at right to format each page.
7 aardvarks
With the Class: Ask students to share their pages. Encourage older
students to notice which of the plural nouns are regular and which are irregular. Compile the
pages into a folder to create an alphabet book.

Does It Belong to Emma?
Pair students to play a possessive guessing game with the
following directions:
1. Partner 1 looks around the classroom and secretly chooses an item that belongs to

another student.
2. Partner 2 tries to guess who owns the item, writing each guess as a question: Does it

belong to Emma?
3. Partner 1 writes the answers using possessive nouns: It is not Emma’s or It is Emma’s.
4. Once Partner 2 guesses the correct owner, Partner 1 can reveal what the item is.
5. Partners switch roles and play again.
With the Class: Discuss the following questions: Was it difficult to form a possessive noun out of
anyone’s name? Which letter does that name end with? Did you remember to add ’s to the end
of each name?

9

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Nouns

Who Are You?
Who are you? Describe yourself. Use as many different nouns as you can.

student

Me

10

All About Pronouns
] Good words by the third time will even bore the dogs.
—Chinese proverb

As the above proverb emphasizes, a reader will tire of even the most
original noun if the writer repeats it too often. In addition to livening
up sentences, pronouns add clarity and rhythm to them. This mini-
lesson focuses on the following aspects of pronouns:
• personal pronouns
• pronouns as subjects and objects

• pronoun agreement
• possessive pronouns

Introduction
Begin a mini-lesson by writing a short definition of a pronoun on the board. Here’s an example:
“A pronoun takes the place of a noun in a sentence:
The dragon chased the girl, but she stopped it in its tracks with her slingshot.”

Teach A domino
is twice as
blank app long as it
ear on eith is wide. A
line divid

Distribute copies of the model passage “All Fall Down!” on page 13 to students.
er side of 1
the line. es it into
connect Players slide two equal
the dom squares.
inoes to the dom Dots or a
earn poin inoes acro
You can ts. ss a table.
do more Then they
than play
end, stac games with
k them in dominoe 2
a pattern, s. You can
303,628 and mak stand the

Ask them to follow along as you read it aloud. Then use the teaching guide
dominoe e them topp dominoe
s. It took le over. In s on one
Ma Li Hua her 45 days 2003, Ma
also had 3 to stack Li Hua of
to fight off them. She China stac
fall. Whe butterflies 3 worked for ked
n Ma Li Hua and cock 10 hours
was finis roaches. every day.
the dom hed, she They mad
inoes to pushed the e some of
fall. At the first dom 4 her dom

on page 12 to discuss how the writer used pronouns in the passage.
end, only ino. It took inoes
Every year seven dom about four 5
, the coun inoes rem minutes
from all over try of the ained stan for
Netherlan ding.
Europe take ds hosts
part. In 200 a Domino
swung abo Day. Scho
Grammar

ve them. 8, one team olchildre
Then he set up 4,34 n and peo
sent the 5,027 dom ple

(Also see the lessons on prepositions, pages 29–34, and phrases and
People mak dominoe inoes. An
e all kind 6
Activities

s toppling. acrobat
dominoe s of designs
s. If you when they
visit Flipp stack
That Really

cat toppling ycat.com
, you can
dominoe see a
s. In one
that show video, it
s the skyl topples a
Grab ‘Em!,

ine of Win design

clauses, pages 47–52.)
7
designs on nipeg, Can
Flippycat ada. Oth
.com show er
egg, and a lightbulb
Grades 3–5

a clock. , a fried East
er
So if you
’re a pers
© 2010 by

on who doe
then seei sn’t mind
ng all you working
r work dest hard and
8 royed, dom
Sarah Glassc

ino topp
ling might
be for you

Apply
!
ock, Schola
stic Teachi
ng Resour
ces

Hand out the Who Says? reproducible on page 16 or display it onscreen.
After reviewing the pronouns and usage examples, tell students that they
can refer to the sheet as you play a game loosely based on Simon Says. Name ____
____ ________
________
________
________
________
________
_____
Date ____

Students respond with the appropriate action when they hear the words
____ ________
_

“[Pronoun] Says” but not when they hear “[Noun] Says.” Continue until the
SINGULA
Subject Pron R
ouns
Object Pron
ouns
Subject Pron PLURAL
ouns
Object Pron
ouns

class has correctly used all the personal subject pronouns several times.
I Examples
I jumped
into the
hot air ballo
on and saile

Example:
The red- d off.
and-white
striped ballo
they They tried on took
to grab the me arou
nd the wor
balloon and ld.
me I waved drag me me
good-by down to
e to them the grou
as the wind nd.
ces

picked up
ng Resour

speed.

Teacher (point to self): eacher says jump up and down. (Students
T
I
stic Teachi

SINGULA them
R
ock, Schola

PLURAL
Sarah Glassc

do nothing.)
© 2010 by
Grades 3–5

Teacher (points to Sarita, a student): he says . . . (Allow that student
S His kite
is tangled
Exam
ples
Grab ‘Em!,

The kite in the wire
tangled in s of the hot
The roof the wires air balloon.
of their of the hot
house is air balloon
That Really

flat enough is his.

to supply the action.)
The house for a hot
with the air balloon
flat roof to land on.
Activities

is theirs.
Grammar

Sarita (points to herself): I say . . . whistle a tune. (Students whistle.)

11

Personal Pronouns
A personal pronoun takes the place of a noun in a sentence.

• writer has to answer questions about number,
A 1 The pronoun it takes the place of the noun
gender, and the role of the noun in the sentence domino in this sentence. We use the pronoun it to
in deciding which pronoun to use to replace it. talk about objects.
• emind students that a pronoun replaces a
R 7 The writer doesn’t know if the cat was a male
noun. In the following sentence, the pronoun or a female. She uses the pronoun it to replace cat.
repeats the subject instead of replacing it: Jack,
he hopped over the candlestick.

Pronouns as Subjects and Objects
The subject pronouns are I, you, it, he, she, we, you, and they. The object pronouns are me,
you, it, him, her, us, and them.

• ronouns can replace subjects: We went
P 2 They takes the place of the noun players. Both
outside. She slammed the door. the noun and pronoun are subjects. If the writer
• ronouns can replace nouns used as objects
P had replaced dominoes with them in this sentence,
of prepositions or of verbs: The snow slid off it would read: They connect them to earn points.
the roof and fell on us. Mom told us to come That would be confusing because they and them
inside. replace two different nouns.
6 The writer knows that the acrobat was a man, so
she used the subjective pronoun he to replace acrobat.

Pronoun agreement
A singular pronoun takes the place of a singular noun. A plural pronoun takes the place
of a plural noun.
• o avoid the his-or-her predicament, encourage
T 3 The pronoun her is singular. It replaces the singular
students to rephrase singular subjects as plural noun Ma Li Hua, which is a young woman’s name. The
subjects: plural pronoun them replaces the plural noun dominoes.
A student should complete his or her 4 The pronoun they replaces the nouns butterflies
homework every night. and cockroaches. Both nouns are plural. If you
Students should complete their homework wrote a butterfly and a cockroach, you would still
every night. use they. Both of these nouns are singular, but
together, they make up a group. You replace the
nouns with a plural pronoun.

Possessive Pronouns
A possessive pronoun shows ownership.

• he possessive pronouns are my/mine, your/
T 5 The dominoes belong to Ma Li Hua. She is a
yours, its/its, our/ours, your/yours, their/theirs. woman, so the writer uses the possessive pronoun
• ossessive pronouns take the place of nouns, too. her to show who the dominoes belong to.
P
We can write or say her slingshot or the slingshot 8 Notice the homophones your and you’re. They
is hers instead of the girl’s slingshot. sound the same but have different meanings and
• tudents may confuse the possessive pronouns spellings. Your is a possessive pronoun. You’re is a
S
its and your with the contractions it’s and you’re. contraction for the pronoun you and the verb are.
Emphasize that a possessive pronoun never,
ever contains an apostrophe.

12

MODEL PASSAGE

Pronouns

All Fall Down!
A domino is twice as long as it is wide. A line divides it into two equal squares. Dots or a
1
blank appear on either side of the line. Players slide the dominoes across a table. Then they
2
connect the dominoes to earn points.
You can do more than play games with dominoes. You can stand the dominoes on one
end, stack them in a pattern, and make them topple over. In 2003, Ma Li Hua of China stacked

303,628 dominoes. It took her 45 days to stack them. She worked for 10 hours every day.
3 3
Ma Li Hua also had to fight off butterflies and cockroaches. They made some of her dominoes
4 5
fall. When Ma Li Hua was finished, she pushed the first domino. It took about four minutes for
the dominoes to fall. At the end, only seven dominoes remained standing.
Every year, the country of the Netherlands hosts a Domino Day. Schoolchildren and people
from all over Europe take part. In 2008, one team set up 4,345,027 dominoes. An acrobat
swung above them. Then he sent the dominoes toppling.
6
People make all kinds of designs when they stack
dominoes. If you visit Flippycat.com, you can see a
cat toppling dominoes. In one video, it topples a design
7
that shows the skyline of Winnipeg, Canada. Other
designs on Flippycat.com show a lightbulb, a fried Easter
egg, and a clock.
So if you’re a person who doesn’t mind working hard and
then seeing all your work destroyed, domino toppling might be for you!
8

A pronoun takes the place of a noun. A singular pronoun replaces a
singular noun. A plural pronoun replaces a plural noun. In this passage,
you’ll see:
• personal pronouns • subject pronouns and object pronouns
• possessive pronouns

13

WRITING PROMPTS

Pronouns
$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

First, Second, or Third?
Write! Think about one of the funniest things that’s ever happened to you. Write about
what happened. Before you begin to write, decide whether to tell the story using one of the

following points of view and its pronouns:
First person: I, me, mine, my
Wr ite yo ur
Second person: you, yours, your ful l resp on se
Third person: he, she, it, him, her, its, his, hers, its on a sepa ra te
sh eet of pa per.
With the Rest of the Class: Explain how you decided which
point of view and which pronouns to use to tell your story.

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

How Should I Phrase This?
Write! A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or a pronoun.
Only objective pronouns—me, you, it, her, him, us, them—appear in prepositional phrases.
Make a greeting card for friends or family members. Use one of the prepositional phrases
below in your card. Complete the prepositional phrase with pronouns.

between __________________ and __________________
Wr ite yo ur
to __________________ and __________________ ful l resp on se
on a sepa ra te
for __________________ and __________________
sh eet of pa per.
With the Rest of the Class: Display your cards. Compare the different
ways everyone completed the prepositional phrases and used them in the cards.

14

Activities: Pronouns
The No-Pronouns Writing Zone
Materials: classroom object, timer
Set the timer for one minute. Tell students to use the time to examine an object.
When the time is up, have them write three to five sentences to describe it—without
using any pronouns!
After students have stopped writing, give them the following instructions: Exchange
descriptions with your partner. Decide which nouns to replace with pronouns. Write the revised
description on a new sheet of paper. Then hold a conference with your partner. Explain how
you decided which nouns to replace. Listen as your partner talks about adding pronouns to your
description. Do you agree with the changes? If not, rewrite your description—but don’t forget

the pronouns.
With the Class: Talk about how it felt to use only nouns in your description. Ask: Was it harder
or easier than you thought it would be? Then have students share their thoughts about adding
the pronouns.

Add It Up
Materials: pair of number cubes, paper and pencils
Have students take turns rolling a number cube to generate numbers for an
addition or subtraction sentence. For example, if the first student rolled a
5 and the second student rolled a 4, they could write either of these sentences: 5 – 4 = 1 or
5 + 4 = 9. (Have them roll two number cubes to produce double-digit numbers.) Tell pairs
to write a word problem to go with their addition or subtraction sentence and to include both
nouns and pronouns in their word problem.
With the Class: Encourage pairs to share their word problems with classmates. Guide a
discussion about how students worked together to create their word problems.

Yours, Mine, and Ours
Ask the group to identify some of their favorite movie or book titles. You might
volunteer some pronoun-heavy titles, such as Them!, a movie about giant ants, or
Yours, Mine, and Ours, a movie about a blended family. Then challenge groups to
create their own movie and book titles that contain pronouns and no nouns and then to write a
brief summary of each movie and book. Give the following hints:
• o get started, groups can work with existing titles and replace the nouns with the
T
appropriate pronouns.
• Two nouns, such as Lola and Martin, can be replaced with She and he or They.
With the Class: Ask groups to share their titles with the rest of the class. Discuss which titles did
the best job of describing the movie or book.

15

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Pronouns
Who Says?
Personal Pronouns
SINGULAR PLURAL
Subject Pronouns Object Pronouns Subject Pronouns Object Pronouns
I me we us

you you you you
he him they them
she her
it it

Examples
The subject
pronoun I does I jumped into the hot air balloon and sailed off.
the action.
The object pronoun me
The red-and-white striped balloon took me around the world.
receives the action.
The subject
pronoun they They tried to grab the balloon and drag me down to the ground.
does the action.
I waved good-bye to them as the wind picked up speed. The subject pronoun I does the
The object pronoun
action. The object pronoun them
me receives
receives the action.
the action.
Possessive Pronouns
SINGULAR PLURAL
my/mine our/ours
your/yours your/yours
his/his their/theirs
her/hers
its/its

Examples

His kite is tangled in the wires of the hot air balloon.
The kite tangled in the wires of the hot air balloon is his.
The roof of their house is flat enough for a hot air balloon to land on.
The house with the flat roof is theirs.

16

All About Verbs

] Life is a verb. Life is living, living is doing.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Verbs are the energy sources of sentences. They set their subjects
into motion—whether a subject is walking or simply being. This
mini-lesson focuses on the following aspects of verbs:
• verb tenses
• irregular verbs

• subject-verb agreement
• descriptive verbs

Introduction
Begin a mini-lesson by writing a short definition of verbs on the
board, for example: “A verb shows action: The dog howls. A verb Last sum
Aransas,
me r, my cou
sins and
I constru
Texas. We cted an eno
didn’t pro

also can show a state of being: The dog is wet.” gress ver 1 rmous san
water. The y far on d castle on
waves bla our first the beach
sted the castle. We in Port
moved our 3 tower and were wo
constructio flooded the rking too
n site five rest of the 2 close to the
Soon fou feet from 3 castle. The
r tan san the water. n we got
d towers smart and
by the wa stretched
ves. They up toward
all stood the sky. No
came from tall. We eve ne of the

Teach
all over the n made flag 4 towers wa
5
beach to s and stu s destroy
add to our watch us ck one on ed
castle, but work. A each tow
we had our lot of the er. People
The last own ideas. m had ide
thing we as about
constructe what we
slowly cra d was a mo should
wled up at. We dug
the beach, a ditch aro
us standin 7 the water
gently fille 6 und our
g in back castle. Wh
of our cas d the mo en the tide
tle. We alm at. Our par
Grammar

I’m thinkin

Distribute copies of the model passage “Towers Stretching to g about ost disappe ents snappe
how to ma ared beh d a photo
plans now 8 ke an eve ind the tall of
. Next sum n larger san towers.
Activities

mer, maybe d castle nex
we will con t summe
struct a full r and dra
-size castle wing up
That Reall

the Sky” on page 19 to students. Ask them to follow along as
9
in the san
d!
y Grab ‘Em!,

you read it aloud. Then use the teaching guide on page 18 to
Grades 3–5
© 2010 by

discuss how the writer used verbs in the passage.
Sarah Glass
cock, Schol

(Also see the lessons on singular and plural nouns and
astic Teach
ing Resou

verbs on pages 35–40 and subjects and predicates on pages
rces

41–46.)

Apply
Hand out the Create a New Word reproducible on page 22
Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_______
Date ___
______

and go over the information about sniglets. You may want
________

to mention that an executive chair is a chair that has arms
and moves on wheels. Ask students: Do you see how the
words executive (a noun) and glide (a verb) were blended to (eg-ZEK-y
eh-glide)
one’s exe v. to roll
cutive cha

create the new verb? Before students work on their own
across the
ir: a com office wit
TENSES: bination hout leav
present— of the wo ing
past—futu rds execut
desk to the re. EXAMP ive and glid
file cabinet LES: Rau e.
. Wow— l execuglide
execuglide Raul exe s from his

sniglets, remind them to follow the same format as the
out the doo cuglided
r to get a all mornin
cup of cof g! Now,
fee. Raul will
rces

What? You
’ve never
ing Resou

heard of
because the word
the word execuglide

entry for execuglide.
execuglide ? You can
astic Teach

but it sho is a sniglet. ’t find it
uld. A sniglet in the dict
is a word ionary? Tha
Work wit that doe t’s
sn’t appear
cock, Schol

h one or in a diction
two other ary,
entry for students
your snig to create
let. Use the at least two
Sarah Glass

_________ sample abo verb snig
_________ ve to help lets. Write
_________ you. a diction
_________ ary
_________
2010 by

_________ _________
_________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________
©

_________ _______
_________
Grades 3–5

_________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _______
_________ _________ _________
y Grab ‘Em!,

_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _______
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _______
That Reall

_________ _________
_________ _________
_________ _______
_________
Activities

_________
_______
Grammar

17

Verb Tenses
Verb tenses show time. Action can occur in the past, present, or future.

• oint out that although most of the verbs in
P 1 Constructed is a past-tense verb. The words last
this personal narrative are in the past tense, summer show that the action occurred in the past.
students will also spot verbs in the present and 8 I’m thinking means I am thinking. Am thinking is
future tenses. in the present tense. The word now shows that the
• ncourage students to look for key words and
E action is occurring in the present.
phrases that help signal which tense to use. 9 Will construct is a future-tense verb. The words
next summer show that the action will take place in
the future.

Irregular Verbs
Regular past tense verbs are formed by adding –ed to the present tense of the verb.

Irregular verbs don’t follow this rule.
• eview the differences between regular and
R 5 Came is the past tense of come. It’s an
irregular verb forms. Share the fact that many irregular verb.
of the irregular verbs in English are very old 6 The present tense of dug is dig, which is an
words that are still formed using old rules. For irregular verb.
instance, the verb drink comes from the Old
English word drincan. Its past tense was dranc.

Subject-Verb Agreement
Subjects and verbs must agree. A singular subject always takes a singular verb.
A plural subject always takes a plural verb.
• emind students that a complete sentence
R 2 We is a plural noun. It takes a plural verb: were
needs both a subject and a verb. The subject working.
and verb may be singular or plural, but they
4 Sometimes the subject and verb are separated
must always agree with each other.
by a prepositional phrase. The simple subject is
none, not towers. None is singular, so it takes the
singular verb was destroyed.

Descriptive Verbs:
Verbs with a lot of muscle make writing more descriptive.

• mphasize how using different synonyms
E 3 The verbs blasted and flooded show the action—
for a common action verb such as move (e.g., and the power—of the water.
walk, dance, shuffle) can make our speech or 7 Water doesn’t have arms and legs. It can’t really
writing more accurate and interesting. Have crawl, but the verb crawled shows that the water
volunteers demonstrate the three actions to moved slowly but surely up the beach toward the
highlight the differences among the verbs. castle.
• emind students to think about using
R 9 Think about using synonyms: construct is a good
strong verbs that create vivid pictures in a replacement for build or make.
reader’s mind.

18

MODEL PASSAGE

Verbs

Towers Stretching to the Sky
Last summer, my cousins and I constructed an enormous sand castle on the beach in Port
1
Aransas, Texas. We didn’t progress very far on our first castle. We were working too close to the
2
water. The waves blasted the tower and flooded the rest of the castle. Then we got smart and
3 3
moved our construction site five feet from the water.
Soon four tan sand towers stretched up toward the sky. None of the towers was destroyed

4
by the waves. They all stood tall. We even made flags and stuck one on each tower. People
came from all over the beach to watch us work. A lot of them had ideas about what we should
5
add to our castle, but we had our own ideas.
The last thing we constructed was a moat. We dug a ditch around our castle. When the tide
6
slowly crawled up the beach, the water gently filled the moat. Our parents snapped a photo of
7
us standing in back of our castle. We almost disappeared behind the tall towers.
I’m thinking about how to make an even larger sand castle next summer and drawing up
8
plans now. Next summer, maybe we will construct a full-size castle in the sand!
9

A verb describes an action or a state of being. In this passage,
you’ll see:
• verb tenses • irregular verbs
• subject-verb agreement • descriptive verbs

19

WRITING PROMPTS

Verbs
$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Write! Choose one of the prompts below to write about. Pay attention to the verb tense!
• hink back to when you were in the first grade. What is the most important event you
T

remember? Use only the past tense to describe what happened.
Wr ite yo ur
• hat is the most interesting thing you’re learning right now in school?
W
ful l respo ns e
Why is it so interesting to you? Use only the present tense in your response. on a sepa rat e
sh eet of pa per.
• hat do you think being grown-up will be like? What will you do for a living?
W
Where will you live? Use only the future tense to predict what will happen.

With the Class: Talk about why you chose the past, the present, or the future. Was writing in
that tense easier or more difficult than you thought it might be?

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

The Tyrannosaurus Rex Growled . . .
Write! What if you could step into a time machine? What place would you visit? Would
you travel to the past or to the future? What would you experience? What would you see,
hear, smell, taste, and feel? What would you do? Write a story about your adventures.
Use the present tense, even if you visit the past or the future.
Wr ite yo ur
Exchange stories with a partner. Read the story and then think about how ful l respo ns e
the writer used verbs. Did the choice of verbs really help you “see” the story? on a sepa rat e
sh eet of pa per.
Talk about what you liked about the story and ask any questions you have.

With the Rest of the Class: Read your story aloud to the class. Share how your partner
helped you revise your work.

20

Activities: Verbs
That’s Highly Irregular
Materials: picture books, chapter books, or leveled readers; dictionary
Remind students that we form the past tense of a regular verb by adding –ed:
jump + –ed = jumped. Irregular verbs don’t follow this rule: eat ate; bring brought.
Challenge partners to see how many regular and irregular verbs they can find in a book of their
choice. Have them open the book to any page and list at least 15 verbs. Tell partners to identify the
tense and tell whether the verb is regular or irregular and create and complete a chart like this one:
Verb Tense Regular or Irregular? How do you know?
see present irregular Past tense is saw, not see+–ed.
If they have any questions about a verb, they should look it up in the dictionary.

With the Class: Discuss how students decided whether a verb was regular or irregular. Did any
of the verbs fool them?

Do You Agree?
Materials: 52 index cards, four markers for each group
Form groups of four players. Have each player write a set of 13 cards: One writes 13
different singular nouns; one writes 13 different plural nouns; one writes 13 different
singular verbs; one writes 13 different plural verbs. Tell students that they’re going to
play a card game that’s similar to Go Fish called Do You Agree? Give them these instructions:
1. lace all the cards facedown and mix them up. Each player draws 13 cards.
P
2. ake turns laying down a card from your hand and asking the other players for a card that
T
agrees with it, for example: “Singular verb—give me a singular noun.” If a player has the card
you ask for, he or she gives it to you. Ask the other players, “Do you agree?” If they think that
subject and verb agree, you keep the card. If a player doesn’t have the card, the next player
takes a turn.
3. lay continues clockwise until all the matches have been made.
P
With the Class: Talk about why nouns such as family and group take singular verbs.

Hello, Math Hotline—Tell Me What to Do!
Announce that students have a new job on the Math Hotline. They must
help their peers by writing the steps for solving a math problem. Choose
a math topic that students need to review; it might be finding the sum of
three numbers, writing a fraction, subtracting decimals, or identifying a rectangle. Show how to
solve a sample problem by breaking down the solution into steps and writing clear directions
that contain precise verbs.
With the Class: Have groups exchange work. Are they able to solve each other’s problems using
the directions? Collect directions in a Math Hotline notebook for everyone to refer to.

21

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Verbs

Create a New Word

{
execuglide (eg-ZEK-yeh-glide) v. to roll across the office without leaving
one’s executive chair: a combination of the words executive and glide.
TENSES: present—past—future. EXAMPLES: Raul execuglides from his
{
desk to the file cabinet. Wow—Raul execuglided all morning! Now, Raul will
execuglide out the door to get a cup of coffee.

What? You’ve never heard of the word execuglide? You can’t find it in the dictionary? That’s
because the word execuglide is a sniglet. A sniglet is a word that doesn’t appear in a dictionary,
but it should.
Work with one or two other students to create at least two verb sniglets. Write a dictionary
entry for your sniglet. Use the sample above to help you.

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

22

All About Adjectives and Adverbs
] I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
—Dr. Seuss

] As to the Adjective; when in doubt, strike it out
—Mark Twain

Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Adverbs modify verbs,
adjectives, and other adverbs. This mini-lesson focuses on the
following aspects of adjectives and adverbs:

• adjectives modifying nouns and pronouns
• adverbs modifying verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs
• positive, comparative, and superlative forms
• descriptive adjectives and adverbs

Introduction
After reviewing the definition of adjectives and adverbs, share
Dr. Seuss’s quote with students. Challenge them to replace the
Adam wa
s sitting in
seat. An a window
anxious loo seat. A wo
k crossed man abo
ut his mo
when she 1 her face.
The woma ther’s age
’d kissed was sitting
him good-b n looked in the aisl
more ner

adjective green with as many adjectives and adverbs as they can.
“You’re so ye at the vous tha e
young! And gate. 2 n his mo
you are flyi ther had
the woma ng solo!”
n said. She
ducked her 3
the tiny rou head to loo
nd window k out

You may want to start with your own example, such as “I do not
. “Oh! Jus
enormous t look at
clouds. And all those
aren’t the
The clou y such a
ds’ edges dark colo
4 were a littl r?”
Adam,” e gray, but
Adam told the clouds

like moss green eggs and extremely tough ham.” When Dr. Seuss’s
the woma weren’t thu
is my ver n. “I’m goi nderheads
y first trip ng to visi . “My nam
5 on a plane. t my gra e’s
” ndparents
Suddenly, in Seaside
with a jerk , California
deep bre
6 and a bum . This
Grammar

ath and trie p, the pla

original sentence is overloaded with adjectives and adverbs, read d to smile. ne backed
“It’s my away from
When the first time the gate.
plane left The woma
Activities

the ground on a plane, n took a
immediate , Adam felt too!”
ly, the pla himself bei
7 ne turned
That Reall

ground sca sharply to ng pushed

aloud Mark Twain’s quote. Work with students in deciding which red Adam the left. back in his
a little. The 7 Looking seat. Alm
working n he tho down at ost
the tiny hou
y Grab ‘Em!,

so hard as ught abo ses on the
a nurse. ut his dad
courage They we fighting
inside him re the bra in Iraq and
. vest peo his mom
ple he kne

adjectives—and adverbs—to strike out. Did students decide to
Grades 3–5

8 w. He mu
Adam sne st have som
aked a loo
k at the wo e of that
fear made man. Her
Adam’s fea eyes were
© 2010 by

r disappe pinched
into hers. ar. Maybe shut in terr
“I’m a littl he could or. Someho
e scared, help her.

scale back all the way and stick with “green eggs and ham”?
too,” he Adam rea w, her
The woma whispered ched out
Sarah Glass

n squeez . and slid his
ed his han hand
d tightly.
Then she
really did
cock, Schol

smile.
astic Teach

Teach
ing Resou
rces

Distribute copies of the model passage “Flying Solo” on page 25
to students. Ask them to follow along as you read it aloud. Then
use the teaching guide on page 24 to discuss how the writer used Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________

adjectives and adverbs in the passage.
_________
_________
_______
Date ___
______ ________

Use the cha
racter sha
pe at the

Apply
describe right to help
a charact you
er for a stor
as you can y. Draw as
to show many det
precisely ails
who this
character
is.
Use the det
ails you dre
w to write
of your cha a descrip
racter. Thi tion
nk of just
and adverb the right

Give each student a copy of the reproducible That’s Quite a
s to use. adjectives
_________
_________
_________
_________ _________
_________ _________
_________

Character! on page 28. Have a variety of colored markers and _________ _________
_________ _________
_________
_________ _________
_________ _________
_________
_________ _________
_________ _________

colored pencils on hand. Go over the directions with students, _________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_________
rces

_________ _________
_________
ing Resou

_________
_________
_________

and on a copy of the page, model drawing a visual detail
_________
_________ _________
astic Teach

_________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _______
cock, Schol

_________ _________
Now thin _________ _________
k of this _______

on the character shape. Show them how you would write a character _________
doing som _________
right ver _________
Sarah Glass

bs and adv ething. Des _______
erbs to use cribe wh
_________ . at he or
she is doi
_________ ng. Think
2010 by

_________ of just the
_________

description of that detail below the drawing. Display students’
_________
_________ _________
_________ _________
©

_________ _________
Grades 3–5

_________ _________
_________ _________
_________ _________ _______
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _________
y Grab ‘Em!,

_______

completed reproducibles and encourage everyone to talk
_________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _________
_________ _________ _______
_________ _________
That Reall

_________ _________
_________ _______
_________

about his or her work.
_________
Activities

_______
Grammar

23

Adjectives
Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns.

• n adjective usually appears before the noun or
A 1 The adjectives an and anxious modify the noun
pronoun it modifies, but it can follow verbs such as look. Articles such as a, an, and the always go first
be, feel, smell, sound, tastes, look, appear, and seem. in a series of adjectives.
• ncourage students to switch the order and
E 4 The apostrophe in clouds’ shows that this
location of the adjectives in the third sentence in adjective is possessive. It modifies edges. You could
the passage and talk about how the rearrangement also write, the edges of the clouds.
changes the meaning and clarity.

Adverbs
Adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs.


• n adverb can appear almost anywhere in a
A 5 The adverb very modifies the adjective first.
sentence. In general, it goes before a simple First modifies the noun trip. You couldn’t move
verb. very to another place in the sentence. It goes with
• t’s okay to separate a verb with an adverb: We
I the adjective, and the adjective can’t be moved.
will probably go to the baseball game. 6 Suddenly is an adverb that modifies the verb
backed. Try placing it after these words: plane,
away, and gate—each new placement creates a
different emphasis.

Positive, Comparative, and Superlative Forms
The positive form describes one thing. The comparative form compares two things. The superlative
form compares more than two things.
• n adjective or adverb in a positive state
A 2 The comparative more nervous compares two
describes one thing (red, slowly). people: the woman and Adam’s mother. You can
• he comparative is formed by adding –er to
T often figure out whether to add –er or more by
the end of positive adjectives or adverbs or by trying to say both forms: nervouser/more nervous.
adding more or less in front of them (redder, Point out that some comparatives and superlatives
more slowly). are irregular: good, better, best.

• he superlative is formed by adding –est to
T 8 Adam is comparing his father and mother to
the end of positive adjectives or adverbs or by all the people he knows, so the writer uses the
adding most or least in front of them (reddest, superlative form of the adjective: brave + –est.
most slowly).

Descriptive Adjectives and Adverbs
Descriptive adjectives and adverbs are as important to use in expository and persuasive
writing as they are in narrative nonfiction and fiction.
• s students explore the power of adding
A 3 The adverb solo modifies the verb are flying.
adjectives and adverbs, their work may The writer could have used the adverb alone
get a little florid. Better to let them stretch instead, but solo reveals a little something about
their vocabularies than to have them stick the woman and how she speaks.
with the same adjectives and adverbs. 7 The adverbs immediately and sharply describe
However, do bring up the Mark Twain quote when and how the plane turned. Adam’s stomach
on page 23 when you think students need probably dropped when the plane did this.
some constructive help in pruning their Did students’ stomachs drop, too?
descriptions.

24

MODEL PASSAGE

Adjectives and Adverbs

Flying Solo
Adam was sitting in a window seat. A woman about his mother’s age was sitting in the aisle
seat. An anxious look crossed her face. The woman looked more nervous than his mother had
1 2
when she’d kissed him good-bye at the gate.
“You’re so young! And you are flying solo!”
3
the woman said. She ducked her head to look out

the tiny round window. “Oh! Just look at all those
enormous clouds. And aren’t they such a dark color?”
The clouds’ edges were a little gray, but the clouds weren’t thunderheads. “My name’s
4
Adam,” Adam told the woman. “I’m going to visit my grandparents in Seaside, California. This
is my very first trip on a plane.”
5
Suddenly, with a jerk and a bump, the plane backed away from the gate. The woman took a
6
deep breath and tried to smile. “It’s my first time on a plane, too!”
When the plane left the ground, Adam felt himself being pushed back in his seat. Almost
immediately, the plane turned sharply to the left. Looking down at the tiny houses on the
7 7
ground scared Adam a little. Then he thought about his dad fighting in Iraq and his mom
working so hard as a nurse. They were the bravest people he knew. He must have some of that
8
courage inside him.
Adam sneaked a look at the woman. Her eyes were pinched shut in terror. Somehow, her
fear made Adam’s fear disappear. Maybe he could help her. Adam reached out and slid his hand
into hers. “I’m a little scared, too,” he whispered.
The woman squeezed his hand tightly. Then she really did smile.

An adjective modifies nouns and pronouns. An adverb modifies
adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs. In this passage, you’ll see:
• adjectives and adverbs
• positive, comparative, and superlative adjectives and adverbs
• descriptive adjectives and adverbs

25

WRITING PROMPTS

$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

More Than Bread and Cheese
Write! Daydream about a grilled cheese sandwich. What does
it look like? How does it smell and taste? How does it feel in your Wr ite yo ur
full resp on se

mouth? What do you hear when you bite into the sandwich? Write a
on a sepa ra te
sentence—or a poem—describing a grilled cheese sandwich. Use all sh eet of pa per.
your senses and tasty adjectives to describe it. Try to make your readers
wish they were eating that sandwich, too.

With the Rest of the Class: Read your description aloud to a small group. Talk about how the
adjectives helped you imagine the sandwich. Does your description make everyone hungry?

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

How Late or Early Were You?
Write! Think about a time when you arrived very late or very
Wr ite yo ur
early somewhere. Why didn’t you arrive on time? How did you
full resp on se
feel? Write a short paragraph describing what happened. Tell on a sepa ra te
exactly how late or early you were. Use adverbs in your description. sh eet of pa per.

Do not include overused adverbs such as very, really, pretty, so.

With the Rest of the Class: Share your writing with a partner. Look at the adverbs your
partner used. Did you use any of those adverbs, too? Which adverbs surprised you most?

26

Activities: Adjectives and Adverbs
Absolutely, Positively Not
Materials: a dictionary for each team
Tell students that, often, adding –ly to an adjective can turn it into an adverb.
Examples: adjective: rapid adverb: rapidly adjective: slow adverb: slowly
Form two teams, the Adjectives and the Adverbs. The Adjectives think of 15 adjectives. Most
of the adjectives should turn into adverbs when –ly is added to the end. However, not all the
adjectives should fit that pattern, for example, colors such as red and blue. Then the Adjective
team calls out an adjective. If they can, the Adverbs turn the adjective into an adverb by adding
–ly. If they can’t form an adverb, they say, “Absolutely, positively not.” As referee, you’ll have
the final say, but allow teams to use the dictionary if there is a disagreement over the answer.

Then students switch teams and play again.
With the Class: How are the meanings of the adjective rapid and the adverb rapidly connected?
Are the adjective hard and the adverb hardly connected in the same way?

Fast, Faster, Fastest
Materials: 30 index cards, markers, dictionary
Make ten sets of adjective and adverb cards or have the groups do so. Each set should
show the positive, comparative, and superlative forms of the adjective or adverb.

Examples:

Place the cards in three different stacks (1—positive form, 2—comparative form, 3—superlative
form) and write the corresponding number on the blank side of each card. Remind students to
keep each stack of cards in order and then have them exchange the three stacks of cards with
another group.
Give the following directions for a card game: Place the three stacks of cards with the
numbered sides up. Decide who will be players 1, 2, and 3. Player 1 turns over a card in the
1 pile. Players 2 and 3 have to supply the correct comparative and superlative forms of the
adjective or adverb. You may look up the word in the dictionary. Then turn over cards 2 and 3
to see if you’re correct. Then Player 2 turns faceup a card in the 2—comparative pile. Players 1
and 3 have to supply the correct positive and superlative forms. Player 3 goes next.
With the Class: Talk about the easiest and most difficult comparative and superlative forms of
the adjectives and adverbs students formed. How often did they look in the dictionary?

And That’s the Whole Story
To the Teacher: Compile all the stories in a binder or a folder.
Who did students describe on the That’s Quite a Character! reproducible? Tell them to
write a story about that character. Remind students to use adjectives and adverbs to
help them describe the character and the setting.
With the Class: Have students read all the stories. Then discuss what they noticed about how
the other writers used adjectives and adverbs.

27

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________


That’s Quite a Character!
Use the character shape at the right to help you
describe a character for a story. Draw as many details
as you can to show precisely who this character is.

Use the details you drew to write a description
of your character. Think of just the right adjectives
and adverbs to use.

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________

Now think of this character doing something. Describe what he or she is doing. Think of just the
right verbs and adverbs to use.

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

28

All About Prepositions
] This land was made for you and me.
—Woody Guthrie

A preposition shows the connection between a noun or a pronoun
and the rest of a sentence. This mini-lesson focuses on the following
aspects of prepositions:
• purpose of prepositions
• prepositional phrases

Introduction
Begin a mini-lesson by writing a short definition of prepositions on the board, for example:
“A preposition connects a noun or a pronoun to the rest of the sentence: The kitten hid under
the table.”

Teach
Do you like

Distribute copies of the passage “A Long Bicycle Ride Up and of about
almost 60
8–10 mil
to ride you

miles per
es per hou
r bicycle
to school
r. The ride 1
rs in the
or in the
1
park? You
can probab
ly pedal
hour. Wo Tour de Fra at speeds
uld you like nce bicycle

Down Mountains,” on page 31 to students. Read it aloud and ask
The race race ofte
ends on to go tha n reach spe
July 26. Bet t fast? On
ween tho 2 July 4, the eds of
Most of 3 se dates, Tour de Fra
the Tour riders ped nce begins.
de France al more tha
word de takes pla n 2,200
means “of ce in Fra miles.
” in French nce. (You

them to follow along. Then use the teaching guide on page 30 to
4
They clim .) The ride probably
b up the rs pedal already gue
Alps and through ssed that!
the race, 5 down the villages and The
the bicyclis m again. around sha
ts have ridd5 By the end rp curves
of France en around of .
. the perime

discuss how the writer used prepositions in the passage.
ter
Teams of
riders from
de France all over the
. American world rac
Lance Arm e in the Tou
six times. strong has r
Grammar

That’s the won the

(Also see the lessons on pronouns on pages 11–16 and de France
. Holding
most any
one has
ever won
race
Activities

that reco the Tour
for you or rd would
me. For Lan probably
ce Armstro be enough
That Reall

race afte 6 ng, it’s not

phrases and clauses on pages 47–52.)
r his Tou . He didn’t
r de France
Armstrong win in 200
y Grab ‘Em!,

decided 6. Then,
to ride aga in 2009,
day three in. Today
of the Tou is July 7,
r de France 2009,
second pla . Lance Arm
Grades 3–5

ce. Will he strong is
win one in
Only one more Tou
rider win r de France
?
© 2010 by

Apply
s the Tou
make sure r de France
that one , but the
of their tea team me
ride with? m wins. mbers wo
rk togeth
Sarah Glass

If you we
7 re in the er. They
Tour de Fra want to
nce, who
would you
cock, Schol

like to
astic Teach

Duplicate the Jigsaw Puzzle reproducible on page 34 onto
ing Resou
rces

card stock; make a copy for each student. Go over the
prepositions at the top of the page and then the
directions for labeling the puzzle pieces. Model
how you would label the first two puzzle pieces. Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________
_________
_________
_______

Monitor students’ progress and offer guidance
Date ___
______ ________

as necessary—when they label their pieces and
when they solve their partners’ puzzles. Allow Write the
letter A in

time for students to talk about how they used the
one of the
about wh puzzle piec
ere the oth es. Use pre
er pieces positions
relation to are. Tell wh to give clue
the A piec ere each s
e. Write piece in the
Then cut a clue in puzzle is
each of the in

preposition clues to put the pieces together.
apart you other puz
r puzzle. zle pieces.
the puzzle Mix up the
together. pieces. Ask
Remind him a friend to
or her to put
use the pre
position
clues.
rces
ing Resou
astic Teach
cock, Schol
Sarah Glass
2010 by
s 3–5 ©
‘Em!, Grade
Really Grab
That
Activities
Grammar

29

Prepositions
Prepositions connect nouns and objective pronouns to the rest of the sentence and give us
information about their relationship to the sentence, including time, place, location, and
movement.
• t’s okay to end a sentence with a preposition—
I 2 The word to is most often used as a preposition.
as long as the preposition can’t be deleted from In this sentence, however, it is part of the infinitive
the sentence. verb to go.
Correct: Who are you going with? 4 Many other languages, such as French and
Incorrect: Where do you live at? Spanish, have prepositions, too.

If you’re still in doubt, think about this 5 There are about 100 prepositions in the English
quotation from Winston Churchill: “Ending a language. Each has a different meaning. The
sentence with a preposition is something up prepositions in this sentence are up and down.
with which I will not put.” Ask students to try using under, through, or with
in the sentence instead. Does the sentence still

make sense?
7 You can end a sentence with a preposition. Say
the sentence without the preposition. If it doesn’t
make sense, keep the preposition at the end. If it
does make sense, get rid of the preposition.

Prepositional Phrases
A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with an object pronoun.

• he pronoun in a prepositional phrase is
T 1 This sentence has two prepositional phrases:
always an object pronoun—me, you, him, her, to school and in the park. Ask: What is the difference
it, us, you, them. between riding to school and riding in the park? How
does each preposition help you tell the difference?
• prepositional phrase that has two pronouns
A
or a noun and pronoun tends to trip up people, 3 Some prepositional phrases can appear in
and they use a subject pronoun instead of different places in a sentence. You could move the
an object pronoun: for you and I (which is prepositional phrase in this sentence: On July 26,
incorrect) instead of for you and me. the race ends.
6 Remind students that a pronoun in a
prepositional phrase has to be objective. Me is an
objective pronoun. Although students might write
or say for you and I, they probably wouldn’t write
or say for I.

30

MODEL PASSAGE

Prepositions

A Long Bicycle Ride Up and Down Mountains
Do you like to ride your bicycle to school or in the park? You can probably pedal at speeds
1 1
of about 8–10 miles per hour. The riders in the Tour de France bicycle race often reach speeds of
almost 60 miles per hour. Would you like to go that fast? On July 4, the Tour de France begins.
2
The race ends on July 26. Between those dates, riders pedal more than 2,200 miles.
3
Most of the Tour de France takes place in France. (You probably already guessed that! The

word de means “of” in French.) The riders pedal through villages and around sharp curves.
4
They climb up the Alps and down them again. By the end of
5 5
the race, the bicyclists have ridden around the perimeter
of France.
Teams of riders from all over the world race in the Tour
de France. American Lance Armstrong has won the race
six times. That’s the most anyone has ever won the Tour
de France. Holding that record would probably be enough
for you or me. For Lance Armstrong, it’s not. He didn’t
6
race after his Tour de France win in 2006. Then, in 2009,
Armstrong decided to ride again. Today is July 7, 2009,
day three of the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong is in
second place. Will he win one more Tour de France?
Only one rider wins the Tour de France, but the team members work together. They want to
make sure that one of their team wins. If you were in the Tour de France, who would you like to
ride with?
7

A preposition connects a noun or a pronoun to the rest of a sentence.
In this passage, you’ll see:
• prepositions • prepositional phrases

31

WRITING PROMPTS

Prepositions
$ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -

Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

This Land . . .
Write! Woody Guthrie was a singer and a songwriter. In 1940, he wrote a song about
America called “This Land Is Your Land.” Here are some lines of his song:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island; Wr ite yo ur
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters ful l respo ns e
on a sepa rat e
This land was made for you and me. sh eet of pa per.
Think about the last line of the song: “This land was made for you
and me.” What do these words mean to you?

With the Rest of the Class: Identify the prepositional phrase in the last line of the song. What
do you notice about it? Then talk about what words you could add to the song to tell about the
place where you live.

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

My Room
Write! Draw a picture of your room at home. Then choose one object in your drawing to
write about. Imagine that the drawing and your words are one page in a picture book. Think
about how to use prepositions and prepositional phrases in your description of the object. Which
prepositions help show its location or its place in relationship to other parts of the room?

With the Rest of the Class: Share your work with the rest of the class. Wr ite yo ur
Talk about the different ways you and your classmates used prepositions and ful l respo ns e
on a sepa rat e
prepositional phrases. How did the prepositions help you describe the object? sh eet of pa per.

32

Activities: Prepositions
A Stack of Prepositions for a Story
Materials: Two sets of 5 index cards, markers
Give the following directions to pairs: Make a stack of five Preposition cards and a
stack of five Noun cards. Write a different preposition on each Preposition card. Write a
different noun on each Noun card. Turn each stack of cards facedown. Then exchange
the two stacks of cards with another group. With your partner, draw a Preposition card and a
Noun card. Work together to make a prepositional phrase and include it in a sentence. This
will be the first line of a story. Draw another Preposition card and a Noun card. Make another
prepositional phrase. Include it in the next sentence you add to your story.
With the Class: Have pairs share their stories with the rest of the class and talk about how they

used prepositional phrases to create their stories. Ask: Suppose you had made Noun and Pronoun
cards. Which pronouns always go with prepositions?

Every Word You Add
Work with students to write a long sentence. Begin by writing a prepositional
phrase on the board or onscreen. Then ask students to take turns doing
the following:
• Add another prepositional phrase. Tell your teacher where to write it in the sentence.
• Add a noun or a verb. Tell your teacher where to write it in the sentence.
The sentence has to make sense, so urge students to take time to read it carefully before
they add words to it.
With the Class: Discuss the following questions: How many words long is your sentence? How
many prepositions does it have? How many prepositional phrases does it have? How did you decide
which words to add? If you added a preposition or a prepositional phrase, how did you decide where to
put it in the sentence?

Draw That Preposition
Tell students to draw a picture that shows a preposition. For example, someone might
draw a picture of a girl giving a present to her friend. So that drawing would show the
preposition to. Before beginning to draw, students should do the following:
• Choose a preposition.
• Think of a sentence that has that preposition in it.
• Draw a picture of that sentence.
Then have them exchange drawings with a partner and guess which preposition their
partner is showing.
With the Class: Talk about how students could use the letters of a preposition to show what
the preposition means. For example, for the preposition over, someone might write the letters
O-V-E-R in a curve, like a bridge. Below the letters, he or she might draw some wavy lines to
show water.

33

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Prepositions

Jigsaw Puzzle
Some Prepositions
about above after against at before
behind beside between beyond for in

into of off on onto to
toward under up upon with without

Write the letter A in one of the puzzle pieces. Use prepositions to give clues
Example
about where the other pieces are. Tell where each piece in the puzzle is in
relation to the A piece. Write a clue in each of the other puzzle pieces.
Then cut apart your puzzle. Mix up the pieces. Ask a friend to put
the puzzle together. Remind him or her to use the preposition clues.

34

All About Singular and Plural Nouns
and Verbs

] One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the
same word as noun and verb.
—Edward Sapir

A singular noun refers to only one person, animal, thing, or idea, and
plural nouns refer to two or more. A singular verb always goes with a
singular subject, and a plural verb always goes with a plural subject.

This mini-lesson focuses on the following aspects of nouns and verbs:
• singular and plural verbs

Introduction
Students trying to make sense of the rules of grammar might not
agree with Edward Sapir’s opinion about the simplicity of our Cinderella
her fingers.
’s stepmo
“Burn tho
ther thro
se peels,
1
ws her ban
ana peels
in the dire
The peels Cindy. The ction of the
n clean the fireplace

language. Although the parts of speech are separate compartments,
land on the ashes out and snaps
apple pee 2 clean floo of the fire
ls, eggshe r. Cinder place,” she
lls, and pea ella places 1
them in a orders.
Stepmoth pods. She metal pot
er Dear. curtsies and on top of
The smo replies, “W a pile of
ke is bad e don’t bur
There is for the air

a word such as fire can be stored in the noun compartment or in the
a smear and the lan n trash any
of banana d. We com more,
this out wh on one of post our
en her two the stepmo 3
trash now
stepsisters ther’s chin .”
paper. “Th bustle into s. Cinder
e king has the room. ella is abo
invited us One of the ut to poi
sure—will to a ball! nt

verb compartment. Then there are the issues of collective nouns be there!” His handso 4 stepsisters
me son, waves a
the prince— piece of
Three we my future
eks later, husband,
a happy I’m
shoes, she group goe
sits down s to the bal
to relax. 5 l. Cinder

and multiple verbs in a sentence, agreement between subjects and
Godmoth A puff of ella is left
Grammar

er steps thro smoke app behind. Kic
ugh the ears in the king off
her
The mice smoke. “Ti room. Cou
in the cor me to go ghing, Cin
Activities

6 ner of the to the bal derella’s
Cinderella room duc l!” She wa Fairy
shakes her k. ves her ma
gic wand.

verbs, and noun phrases that separate a subject from the verb.
head. “I’m 7
That Reall

recycled not going
paper! And to the bal
do you kno l. The inv
drafty cas w how mu itation wa
y Grab ‘Em!,

tle? What ch energy sn’t even
I’d really the king printed on
appear in like you uses to hea
our backya to do is ma t and coo
rd.” ke a win l that hug
dmill e,
Grades 3–5

Cinderella
got her win
prince. Alm dmill. Her

Teach
ost everyo stepsister
got the
© 2010 by

ne lived
happily eve
r after.
Sarah Glass
cock, Schol

Distribute copies of the passage “Cinderella Goes Green” on page
astic Teach
ing Resou

37 to students. Read it aloud and ask them to follow along. Then
rces

use the teaching guide on page 36 to discuss how the writer
used singular and plural nouns and verbs in the passage.
(Also see the lessons on nouns on pages 5–10, verbs on Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________
_________
_________

pages 17–22, and subjects and predicates on pages 41–46.) _______
Date ___
______ ________

Some wo
rds can be
used as nou
ns and as
verbs. Her

Apply
e’s a list
of some
of them.

Give each student a copy of the Even = Noun, Odd = Verb
reproducible on page 40, and go over the list of words. Before Can you
think of
three mo
re words
_________ that can
be nouns

pairs begin playing the game, model how you would create a
_________ or verbs?
_____
_________
rces

_________
_____
ing Resou

_________
_________
_____

noun sentence and a verb sentence for a word that’s not on
astic Teach
cock, Schol

the list, such as trick. Make sure students understand that
Sarah Glass
2010 by

they are not working with homophones, words that sound
s 3–5 ©
‘Em!, Grade

the same but are spelled differently.
Really Grab
That
Activities
Grammar

35

Singular and Plural Nouns
A singular noun names one person, animal, thing, or idea. A plural noun names more than
one person, animal, thing, or idea.
• collective noun, such as team, describes
A 3 In this sentence, the word land is used as a
a group of more than one person, animal, singular noun. Land is one of those words that can
thing, or idea. It can be singular or plural, be used as a noun or a verb.
depending on whether the group is acting as 5 The noun group is called a collective noun.
one (singular) or individually (plural): The Nouns such as band, class, team, and jury are
group of swallows wheels and turns to the south. collective nouns. They are singular nouns because
The group of birdwatchers drive home in separate they refer to a group working together as one.
cars. To avoid confusion, suggest that students
rewrite sentences that contain collective
nouns: Together, the swallows wheel and turn to
the south. The birdwatchers drive home in their

separate cars.
• he British usually use plural verbs with
T
collective nouns, which can sound strange to
Americans—the jury are undecided.

Singular and Plural Verbs
A singular verb always goes with a singular noun. A plural verb always goes with a
plural noun.
• ust as a sentence can have more than one
J 1 This sentence has two verbs—throws and snaps.
subject, it can have more than one verb: Jack The verbs go with the singular noun, stepmother,
and Jill huff and puff up the hill. Both verbs so both are singular.
must be parallel—have the same tense—and
2 In this sentence, the word land is used as a
must agree with the single or compound
plural verb.
subject.
7 Duck is a plural verb. The singular verb is ducks.
If there had only been one mouse, the sentence
would read, The mouse in the corner of the room
ducks. (Duck is another word that can be used as a
noun or a verb.)

Subject-Verb Agreement
The subject and verb in a sentence must agree. A singular subject takes a singular verb.
A plural subject takes a plural verb.
• n a sentence such as The girl on the swings
I 4 In this sentence, the subject is one and not
glides through the air, students may think that stepsisters, so the verb has to be singular.
the subject is swings because of its location 6 The subject of this sentence is mice, which is
next to the verb glides. Emphasize that the a plural noun—and irregular. The verb is duck,
subject of the sentence always dictates which is plural. This subject and verb agree.
whether the verb is singular or plural.
• hen a collective noun is the subject, a noun
W
phrase often separates it from the verb.

36

MODEL PASSAGE

Singular and Plural Nouns and Verbs

Cinderella Goes Green
Cinderella’s stepmother throws her banana peels in the direction of the fireplace and snaps
1 1
her fingers. “Burn those peels, Cindy. Then clean the ashes out of the fireplace,” she orders.
The peels land on the clean floor. Cinderella places them in a metal pot on top of a pile of
2
apple peels, eggshells, and pea pods. She curtsies and replies, “We don’t burn trash anymore,
Stepmother Dear. The smoke is bad for the air and the land. We compost our trash now.”

3
There is a smear of banana on one of the stepmother’s chins. Cinderella is about to point
this out when her two stepsisters bustle into the room. One of the stepsisters waves a piece of
4
paper. “The king has invited us to a ball! His handsome son, the prince—my future husband, I’m
sure—will be there!”
Three weeks later, a happy group goes to the ball. Cinderella is left behind. Kicking off her
5
shoes, she sits down to relax. A puff of smoke appears in the room. Coughing, Cinderella’s Fairy
Godmother steps through the smoke. “Time to go to the ball!” She waves her magic wand.
The mice in the corner of the room duck.
6 7
Cinderella shakes her head. “I’m not going to the ball. The invitation wasn’t even printed on
recycled paper! And do you know how much energy the king uses to heat and cool that huge,
drafty castle? What I’d really like you to do is make a windmill
appear in our backyard.”
Cinderella got her windmill. Her stepsister got the
prince. Almost everyone lived happily ever after.

Singular nouns and singular verbs go together. Plural nouns and
plural verbs go together. In this passage, you’ll see:
• singular and plural verbs

37

WRITING PROMPTS

Singular and Plural Nouns and Verbs
$ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -

Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

More Characters Move In
Write! A good story has the following elements:
• one or more interesting characters

• a setting that shows where and when the story happens
• a problem
• a description of how the character or characters try to solve the problem
• the solution to the problem
Write a one-paragraph mini-story about one pony, one puppy, or one cow. Then rewrite your
story so it’s about more than one pony, one puppy, or one cow.

With the Rest of the Class: What did you have to do to change your story from one
character to more than one character?

$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

Follow That Noun Phrase
Write! Complete the sentences with verbs.
The cabin in the woods ________________________________________________________ .
Fourteen pickles in a jar ________________________________________________________ .
The band on the field __________________________________________________________ .
A caterpillar on the leaf __________________________ and __________________________ .

With the Rest of the Class: Share your sentences with a small group. Talk about how you
decided whether to use a singular or a plural verb to complete each sentence. How were your
sentences alike and different?

38

Activities: Singular and Plural Nouns and Verbs
Book Safari!
None of the others, not even the goose, noticed that she [Charlotte] was at work.
—from Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Display this sentence on the board or onscreen so the class can see it. Point out
that the subject (None) and verb (noticed) in the above sentence aren’t next to each
other. Have students try rewriting the sentence in the present tense. When you’ve
discussed why the agreement is singular (none—notices), invite groups on a book safari, giving
them these instructions:
• Search through your favorite books for sentences where the subjects and verbs are

separated.

• If the sentences are in the past tense, rewrite them in the present tense. (First identify the

verb. Then, to find the subject, ask yourself who or what did that action.)
• Record your results in your writing folders or notebooks.

With the Class: Have students share and discuss their results.

A Short Message
Materials: a strip of card stock, colored markers
Review the characteristics of an effective bumper sticker: the message
gives the driver’s opinion about something in a short phrase or sentence
so people can read it quickly and from a distance. Hand out strips of card
stock and have students design a bumper sticker with a two-word message using only one
noun and one verb.
With the Class: Display students’ bumper stickers on the wall. Ask: Which ones really jump out
at you? Which ones would you put on a car if you owned one? Do you see more singular nouns and
verbs or more plural nouns and verbs on the bumper stickers?

The School Shopping Channel
Ask students to imagine that your school has its own TV channel called
the School Shopping Channel. On it, they can sell items to raise money for
your school. Have students work together to write a short script to read
on TV. Tell them to think about the following: the product they want to sell, how much it will
cost, why they want to sell it, what makes the product special, and what each group member
will say. Have them consider how to put together their nouns and verbs. Give them this format
for each speaker:
Sam: I’m Sam from Class 4A. Our class needs your help!
With the Class: Set aside time for groups to rehearse their scripts. Then have them perform for
the class and take “orders” for their products from the other students. How much money did
each group raise?

39

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Singular Nouns and Verbs

Even = Noun, Odd = Verb
Some words can be used as nouns and as verbs. Here’s a list of some of them.
color plant row
train kick cut
fire hunt smell

speed blast roll
dart knock fly
dance drink sink
trap smile drop
stole yell bark
ram whisper type
fish turn drink

Can you think of three more words that can be nouns or verbs?

_______________________ _______________________ _______________________

Use the list to play the Noun or Verb game.
• Choose a word.
• Take turns rolling a number cube.
• f you roll an even number, use the word as a noun in a sentence. Your partner then
I
makes up a sentence using the word as a verb.
• f you roll an odd number, use the word as a verb in a sentence. Your partner then makes
I
up a sentence using the word as a noun.
• Write down your pairs of sentences.

40

All About Subjects and Predicates

] There is no conversation more boring than the one where
everybody agrees.
—Michel De Montaigne

Agreement between two speakers might make their conversation dull,
but if the subjects and predicates in their sentences don’t agree, then
their conversation will be confusing and disagreeable. This mini-lesson
focuses on the following aspects of subjects and predicates:
• subjects • compound subjects

• predicates • compound predicates

Note: Earlier in the book, you’ll find the phrase subject-verb agreement.
This chapter expands the concept of the verb as the predicate (or the
key part of the predicate).

Introduction
Begin a mini-lesson on subjects and predicates by writing a short A stack of
blueberry

definition for each on the board, for example: “The subject is what or beside the
1 pancakes
lands on
pancakes. my plate.
It seems Then two
holds a spa like my bre eggs land
tula in eac akfast cam sunny-side
h hand. Tho e out of -up right
why Spa se spatula nowhere!
tula Sal is s are mo The cook,
the fastest ving so fast Spatula Sal,

whom the sentence is about. The predicate tells what the subject is As I eat,
and 24 slice
and ten hot
I look up
2
s of bacon
and count
twisting
2
flipper in

12 pieces
in the air.
the West.

of French
toast
that her
hands are
a blur. Tha
t’s

dogs sizz Ten ham
burgers

or does. The subject and predicate of a sentence must agree. If the
le on the
off the grill 3 grill. Wit
, Spatula hout taki 3
Sal holds ng her eye
of French out four s
toast and plates. Thr
six slices ee pieces
Spatula Sal 4 of bacon
fall on eac
has been h plate.

subject is singular, the predicate must be singular. If the subject is and eggs flipping bur
since she gers and
was a tiny pancakes
2 years old, , little girl.
Grammar

5
her parent When she
s brough was
She was t her to this
hungry. Hec diner.
Activities

plural, then the predicate must be plural.”
k, she was
crowded ravenous.
. There wer The dine
e about 50 r was
That Really

the cook orders bef
to fry her ore Sal’s.
eggs. Afte She was
and clim r wigglin so hungry
bed on a g out of 6 that she
Grab ‘Em!,

stack of her high couldn’t
scrambled
7 milk cart chair, Sal wait for
ons. She toddled beh
eggs, and grabbed ind the cou
sausage a spatula 7
nter
mouth whi patties, all and started
Grades 3–5

Teach
le she was at once. flipping has
at it. She flipp h browns
ed a cou ,
Since tha ple of frie
t day, Sal’ d eggs into
© 2010 by

s been the her
8 fastest flipp
er in the
West.
Sarah Glass
cock, Schol

Distribute copies of the passage “The Fastest Flipper in the West”
astic Teach
ing Resou

on page 43 to students. Read it aloud and ask them to follow along.
rces

Then use the teaching guide on page 42 to discuss how the writer
used subjects and predicates in the passage.
(Also see the lessons on nouns on pages 5–10, verbs on pages 17–22, Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________

singular and plural nouns and verbs on pages 35–40, and phrases and
_________
_________
_______
Date ___
______ ________

clauses on pages 47 52.)
– You read
Paul Bun
a tall tale
yan, John
about Spa
Henry, Pec
tula Sal.
Write a poe
m about
your poe os Bill—or other tall-
m, replace make up tale charact
the underlin your own ers. Thin
add more ed title and larger-than k about
stanzas, subjects -life charact
too. For and predica ers. To crea
each new tes in “Sp te

Apply
stanza, add atula Sal.
one more ” (You can
subject and
predicate.)

Duplicate the Agreement Poetry reproducible on page 46 and give
a copy to each student. After going over the directions and the
rces
ing Resou
astic Teach

example, work with the class to complete the first and second
ock, Schol
Sarah Glassc

stanzas. Make sure students understand that the noun is the subject
2010 by
s 3–5 ©

and the verb is the predicate. Then have them write the third stanza
‘Em!, Grade
Really Grab

on their own. Encourage students to compose additional stanzas.
That
Activities
Grammar

41

Subjects
The subject tells who or what the sentence is about.

• sentence has a subject and a predicate. They
A 1 The simple subject of this sentence is stack,
must agree with each other. which is singular. The complete subject is a stack
• he most important part of the subject is the
T of blueberry pancakes.
noun or pronoun (the simple subject). 5 Spatula Sal is the simple subject of this
• complete subject contains the simple subject
A sentence. The pronoun she is part of the clause
and all the words that go with it. since she was a tiny, little girl. This clause has a
subject and a predicate, but it doesn’t make sense
on its own.

Predicates
The predicate tells what the subject is or does.

• he most important part of the predicate is the
T 6 This sentence has two pronouns and two verbs,
verb (the simple predicate). but it only has one subject and one predicate: She
• complete predicate contains the simple
A was. The complete predicate (was so hungry that
predicate and all the words that go with it. she couldn’t wait for the cook to fry her eggs) contains
the clause that she couldn’t wait for the cook to fry
• ake sure that students understand that the
M her eggs, which can’t stand on its own.
dependent clauses in Points 5 and 6 cannot
stand on their own—even though each 8 Sal’s is a contraction that stands for Sal has. This
contains a subject and a verb. contraction contains the simple subject and part of
the simple predicate. The entire simple predicate
is has been.

Compound Subjects
A compound subject has two or more subjects joined by a coordinating conjunction—
and, or, but.
• f and joins subjects, use a plural predicate: My
I 3 The compound subjects in this sentence are
sister and her friends were screaming during hamburgers and hot dogs. Separating the sentences
the scary movie. would mean repeating the same words: Ten
• f or joins the subjects, the subject right before
I hamburgers sizzle on the grill. Ten hot dogs sizzle
the verb (the simple predicate) determines on the grill. Good writers try to avoid repetition—
whether it is singular or plural: My sister or unless they want to repeat words for emphasis or
her friend was screaming during the scary rhythmic effect.
movie. 4 A compound subject joined by the coordinating
conjunction and always takes a plural verb.

Compound Predicates
A compound predicate has two or more predicates joined by a coordinating conjunction.

• he verbs in the compound predicate must
T 2 The main verbs in this sentence are look and
always be the same tense: My sister was count, and they form a compound predicate. You
screaming during the scary movie, throwing could rewrite this sentence as two sentences: As
her popcorn into the air, and spilling her bottle I eat, I look up in the air. I count 12 pieces of French
of water. Point out that the auxiliary verb, in toast and 24 slices of bacon.
this case was, doesn’t have to be repeated with 7 Both toddled and climbed are past-tense verbs.
each verb.

42

MODEL PASSAGE

Subjects and Predicates

The Fastest Flipper in the West
A stack of blueberry pancakes lands on my plate. Then two eggs land sunny-side-up right
1
beside the pancakes. It seems like my breakfast came out of nowhere! The cook, Spatula Sal,
holds a spatula in each hand. Those spatulas are moving so fast that her hands are a blur. That’s
why Spatula Sal is the fastest flipper in the West.
As I eat, I look up and count 12 pieces of French toast

2 2
and 24 slices of bacon twisting in the air. Ten hamburgers
3
and ten hot dogs sizzle on the grill. Without taking her eyes
3
off the grill, Spatula Sal holds out four plates. Three pieces
of French toast and six slices of bacon fall on each plate.
4
Spatula Sal has been flipping burgers and pancakes
and eggs since she was a tiny, little girl. When she was
5
2 years old, her parents brought her to this diner.
She was hungry. Heck, she was ravenous. The diner was
crowded. There were about 50 orders before Sal’s. She was so hungry that she couldn’t wait for
6
the cook to fry her eggs. After wiggling out of her high chair, Sal toddled behind the counter
7
and climbed on a stack of milk cartons. She grabbed a spatula and started flipping hash browns,
7
scrambled eggs, and sausage patties, all at once. She flipped a couple of fried eggs into her
mouth while she was at it.
Since that day, Sal’s been the fastest flipper in the West.
8

A sentence has a subject and a predicate. They must agree with each
other. In this passage, you’ll see:
• subjects • predicates
• compound subjects • compound predicates

43

WRITING PROMPTS

$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

My Favorite Subject
Write! What are your two favorite subjects in school right now? Math? Social studies?
Science? Language arts? Write a short paragraph comparing the two subjects.

With the Rest of the Class: Talk about your favorite subjects. Tell which subjects you used in
your paragraphs to talk about your favorite subjects. Did you use only singular subjects? Did you
include any compound subjects?

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

All Predicate and No Subject?
Write! Read this sentence: Dance with me! Does this sentence seem like it’s all predicate and
no subject? The sentence is an imperative sentence. It gives a command. The subject, you, is
understood: [You] dance with me! Complete the imperative sentences below. Write at least
two different sentences for each command.

Go _________________________ ! Follow _________________________ !

Take _________________________ ! Write _________________________ !

With the Rest of the Class: Share your imperative sentences with a partner. Try to create an
imperative sentence that has a compound predicate. Combine one of your commands with one of
your partner’s.

44

Activities: Subjects and Predicates
That’s a Strange Subject
Materials: dictionary
Have students search the dictionary for a noun they aren’t familiar with and then
write a few sentences about it. Here are some guidelines to give them:

• Use the noun so that anyone would be able to figure out its meaning.
• Make your noun the subject of at least two sentences.
• Underline your noun when you use it as a subject.
Example: The tinnitus [TIN-ih-tus] made Mary clutch her ears. It sounded like an entire hive of
bees was buzzing angrily inside her head. “Tinnitus can be caused by many different things,”

Mary’s doctor was saying. Mary couldn’t hear him through the buzzing.
With the Class: Tell students to share their sentences with a partner. Have each partner explain
whether the underlined subject is singular or plural—and how he or she knows.

The Rules of the Game
Materials: deck of cards, number cubes, and/or spinners
Display a variety of games and their rules for pairs to look at to help them
create a new game. It should be a game that at least two people can play.
Supply the following guidelines:
• Write down the rules of your game.
• Play the game a few times to make sure it works.
• Rewrite the rules to make them as clear as you can. (Look at the rules for other games.)

• Make sure that all your subjects and predicates agree.
With the Class: Suggest that pairs give their games to other pairs to play and that they keep
the following questions in mind: Were the players able to use the rules to play the game? Can they
suggest any changes in the rules to make them clearer?

A Very Long, Compound Predicate
Say a simple subject, and then call on a student to add a simple predicate to it. As
you continue to call on students for simple predicates, write their responses on the
board to create one very long sentence. Then work with students to decide which
coordinating conjunction or conjunctions—and, or, but—to use to connect the simple predicates.
Example: Teacher: The cows in the field . . .
Student 1: munched on grass, . . .
Student 2: mooed at the moon, . . .
With the Class: Challenge students to rewrite their very long sentence so it has a subject and
only two predicates.

45

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________


Agreement Poetry
You read a tall tale about Spatula Sal. Write a poem about other tall-tale characters. Think about
Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Pecos Bill—or make up your own larger-than-life characters. To create
your poem, replace the underlined title and subjects and predicates in “Spatula Sal.” (You can

add more stanzas, too. For each new stanza, add one more subject and predicate.)

SPATULA SAL
First stanza:
Spatula Sal flips.
She flips
all day long.

Second stanza:
Spatula Sal and Pecos Bill flip and rope.
They flip and rope
all day long.

Third stanza:
Spatula Sal and Pecos Bill and John Henry flip and rope and hammer.
They flip and rope and hammer
all day long.

46

All About Phrases and Clauses

] If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there
would be a lot of empty pages.
—Elaine Liner

The above quote has two phrases and two clauses. A phrase is a group
of words without a subject or a predicate: about what happened and
of empty pages. A clause contains a subject and a predicate: If writers
stopped writing, and then there would be a lot of empty pages. This mini-
lesson focuses on the following aspects of phrases and clauses:

• phrases
• independent clauses
• dependent clauses

Introduction
Begin this mini-lesson by sharing the definitions of phrases and clauses in the box above. As an
example, write a related group of phrases and clauses such as the following:
between the front and back wheels (prepositional phrase)
the woman freed the armadillo (independent clause)
when it was trapped (dependent clause)
When 10-y

Ask students how each phrase and clause matches the definitions. Then
1 ear-old Ame
described lia Earhart
the plane saw her
as “a thin first airplane
g of rust , she was
More imp y wire and n’t very exci
ressed by wood and ted. She
started at 2 roller coas not at all
the top of ters, Ame interesting.”
lia tried to
a toolshed build one

challenge them to help you combine the phrases and clauses into one
down the and ended in her back
ramp, tum on the grou yard. The
bling onto nd. Ame ramp
Amelia had 3 the grou lia climbed
a huge smil nd at the into a box
e on her bottom. and slid
face. She Despite a
described hurt lip and
her ride as a torn dres
“just like s,
flying!”

sentence. Here’s a sample sentence: The woman freed the armadillo when
it was trapped between the front and back wheels.
Grammar

About ten
years later
Activities

pilots wer , Amelia
e doing stun finally fell
in love with
ts and trick flying. She
That Really

area. He s. One pilot 4 was at an
dove and spotted Ame air show
aimed his lia and a where
She thou plane at friend stan
ght she mig them. The
friend ran ding in an
Grab ‘Em!,

ht like to for cover, open
Then, whe be flying but Ame
as the red

Teach
n Amelia plane zoom lia didn’t
first wom finally flew 5
ed past her. move.
in a plan
Grades 3–5

an to fly e, she wan 6
by herself ted to be
continue across Nor pilot, too.
d to mak th America Soon she
e many othe and back became
© 2010 by

Today, a r record-b again. Dur the
plane ride reaking fligh ing her shor
probably ts. t life, Ame
people fly doesn’t seem lia
every day.
Sarah Glassc

Still, the like such
about Ame
8
next time a big deal
you fly, or to you and
lia Earhart. you look me. Thousan
7 ds of
up in the
ock, Schola

7
sky and see 8
a plane,

Distribute copies of the passage “Just Like Flying!” on page 49 to
think
stic Teachi
ng Resour

students. Read it aloud and ask them to follow along. Then use the
ces

teaching guide on page 48 to discuss how the writer used phrases and
clauses in the passage.
(Also see the lessons on prepositions on pages 29–34 and sentences on
Name ____
____ ________
________
________
________
________
________
_____
Date ____
____ ________
_

pages 59–64.) In this activ
Number
ity, each
cube
number
you roll stan
ds for a type
of phrase
or clause.
See the key
below.

Apply
= Indepen
dent Clau
se that beg
= Depend ins with
ent Clau a proper
se that beg noun
= Phrase ins with
that beg “when”
ins with
= Present “down”
Participial
Phrase that
= Past Part begins with
icipial Phra “going”
Roll the num se that beg
ber cube ins with
three time “hooted
create in s. Write ”
the chart. the num

Duplicate the Add a Phrase Here, a Clause There reproducible on page 52.
ber you rolle
d and the
phrase or
clause you

________
_______
ces

________
ng Resour

________ ________

Give a copy of it and a number cube to each student. Model rolling and
_______ ________
________ ________
________ ________
________ ________
stic Teachi

_______ ________ ________
________ ________ ________
________ ________
________ ________
________
ock, Schola

________ ________
Can you ________
create a ________
complete ________

recording three numbers and determining whether you can write a
below. If sentence ________
Sarah Glassc

you can’ from you
t, keep rollin r phrases
and clau g numbers and/or clau
ses. Then until you ses? If you
write you can. Writ can, writ
r sentence e down you e it
© 2010 by

________ below. r numbers
________ , and phra
________ ses
________ ________
________

sentence. Then allow students to complete the reproducible on their own.
________
Grades 3–5

________ ________
________ ________
________ ________ ________
________ ________ ________
________ ________ ________
__
Grab ‘Em!,

________ ________ ________
________ ________ ________
________ ________ ________
________ ________ __
________ ________
________
That Really

________ ________
________ __
________
________
________
__
Activities
Grammar

47

Phrases
A phrase is a group of words that doesn’t have a subject and a verb.

• prepositional phrase begins with a preposition
A 2 This sentence has the phrase impressed by roller
and ends with a noun or an object pronoun: coasters. The phrase has a past-tense verb (impress
with Jacqui, with me, with Jacqui and me. + –ed) in it called a past participle. A comma
• sentence can have more than one
A sets it off because it comes at the beginning of a
prepositional phrase. sentence.

• participial phrase begins with a present
A 3 This sentence has the phrase tumbling onto
or past participle: Enjoying the cool weather, the ground. The phrase has a present-tense verb
the queen walked three miles. The court jester, (tumble + –ing) in it called a present participle.
tired from the long walk, staggered behind her. 4 This sentence has two prepositional phrases: in
Emphasize that these phrases do not have love and with flying.
subjects. 7 Always use an object pronoun—me, you, it, him,

his, her, us, you, them—in a prepositional phrase.

Independent Clauses
An independent clause has a subject and a predicate. It can stand alone as a sentence.

• wo or more independent clauses can
T 5 The coordinating conjunction but joins these
be joined together with a coordinating two independent clauses.
conjunction—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. 8 This clause has a subject—thousands—and a
(Remember the word FANBOYS.) predicate—fly. It forms a complete sentence on its
own, so it’s an independent clause.

Dependent Clauses
A dependent clause has a subject and a predicate, but it can’t stand alone as a sentence.

• dependent clause begins with a relative
A 1 When 10-year-old Amelia Earhart saw her first
pronoun—who, that, which, what—or a airplane is a dependent clause. It is combined with
subordinating conjunction—if, when, before, an independent clause and set off with a comma
since. to make a complete sentence. Since the dependent
clause starts the sentence, it’s set off by a comma.
• hen a dependent clause goes before an
W
independent clause, it is set off by a comma. 6 The dependent clause in this sentence is as the
red plane zoomed past her. Since it appears at the
end of the sentence, it’s not set off by a comma.

48

MODEL PASSAGE

Phrases and Clauses

Just Like Flying!
When 10-year-old Amelia Earhart saw her first airplane, she wasn’t very excited. She
1
described the plane as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting.”
More impressed by roller coasters, Amelia tried to build one in her backyard. The ramp
2
started at the top of a toolshed and ended on the ground. Amelia climbed into a box and slid
down the ramp, tumbling onto the ground at the bottom. Despite a hurt lip and a torn dress,

3
Amelia had a huge smile on her face. She described her ride as “just like flying!”

About ten years later, Amelia finally fell in love with flying. She was at an air show where
4
pilots were doing stunts and tricks. One pilot spotted Amelia and a friend standing in an open
area. He dove and aimed his plane at them. The friend ran for cover, but Amelia didn’t move.
5
She thought she might like to be flying as the red plane zoomed past her.
6
Then, when Amelia finally flew in a plane, she wanted to be pilot, too. Soon she became the
first woman to fly by herself across North America and back again. During her short life, Amelia
continued to make many other record-breaking flights.
Today, a plane ride probably doesn’t seem like such a big deal to you and me. Thousands of
7 7 8
people fly every day. Still, the next time you fly, or you look up in the sky and see a plane, think
8
about Amelia Earhart.

A phrase is a group of words. A clause is a group of words that
contains a subject and a predicate. In this passage, you’ll see:
• phrases
• independent and dependent clauses

49

WRITING PROMPTS

Phrases and Clauses
$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

I’m Going Through a Phrase
Write! Choose one of the following prepositional or participial phrases. Include it in the lead
of a scary short story.

• in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs
• barking at the black shape
• dashing for the safety of my room
• buried in the backyard

With the Rest of the Class: Talk about these questions: How did you use the phrase to set a
scary mood for your story? What other phrases do you see in your story?

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

The Clause of It All
Write! Choose one of the following clauses. Include it in a sentence. Make that sentence the
lead of a funny short story.
• that made the stack of cereal boxes tumble down
• since my dog ate my homework
• the ketchup spurted out of the bottle
• who accidentally put on one blue sock and one red sock

With the Rest of the Class: Talk about these questions: How did you use the clause to write
a sentence? How did you use that lead to set a funny mood for your story? What other clauses do
you see in your story?

50

ACTIVITIES: Phrases and Clauses
A Hide-and-Seek Story Using Prepositional Phrase Clues
Materials: drawing materials including paper, colored pencils, and markers
Have students work together to write and illustrate a picture book about characters
playing hide and seek. The group should use prepositional phrases to show where
the characters hide and where they look for each other. For each page of text, they
should draw a picture that shows the action and write a caption for each picture. The caption
should be in the form of a prepositional phrase. For example, if the drawing shows a boy hiding
underneath the bed, the caption might read “underneath the bed.”
With the Class: Have two groups meet and talk about how they used prepositional phrases in
their stories. Ask them to read each other’s stories and offer positive comments.

The Clause Convention
Materials: index cards, markers, safety pins
Form two teams—the Dependent Clauses and the Independent Clauses. Then count
off students. Even numbers will write the appropriate clause about the topic of
pickles. Odd numbers will write the appropriate clause about the topic of onions.
You may also choose your own related topics. Share why people hold conventions (to share
information and ideas about common topics) and have students participate in a class Clause
Convention with these instructions:
• Create your own name tags. Be sure to include your name and whether you’re a

Dependent or an Independent Clause.
• ear your name tag and look for someone at the convention who has the same interest
W
as yours—pickles or onions. See if you can combine your clauses to create a sentence that
makes sense.
With the Class: When students can form a clear sentence, write it on the board. Send students
back to the convention to see who else they can make a sentence with.

“If Only” Clause Poems
Direct pairs to write an “If only” poem. The first line is a dependent “if only” clause.
The second line is an independent “then” clause that tells what would happen if their
wish came true. The third and fourth lines of the stanza repeat the pattern:
If only . . .,
Then . . . .
If only . . .,
Then . . . .
Challenge pairs to try to write at least three stanzas.
With the Class: Tell pairs to practice reading aloud their poem—one partner will read lines 1
and 3 in each stanza, and the other partner will read lines 2 and 4—and then perform it for the
class. Talk about the similarities and differences among the poems.

51

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Phrases and Clauses

Add a Phrase Here, a Clause There
Materials: Number cube
In this activity, each number you roll stands for a type of phrase or clause. See the key below.

1 = Independent Clause that begins with a proper noun
2 = Dependent Clause that begins with “when”
3 = Phrase that begins with “down”
4 = Present Participial Phrase that begins with “going”
5 = Past Participial Phrase that begins with “hooted”

Roll the number cube three times. Write the number you rolled and the phrase or clause you
create in the chart.

Number Rolled Phrase or Clause
_______________ ________________________________________________________________

_______________ ________________________________________________________________

_______________ ________________________________________________________________

Can you create a complete sentence from your phrases and/or clauses? If you can, write it
below. If you can’t, keep rolling numbers until you can. Write down your numbers, and phrases
and clauses. Then write your sentence below.

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

52

All About Elaboration

] Once you’ve got some words looking back at you, you can take two
or three—or throw them away and look for others.
—Bernard Malamud

In writing, elaboration is the act or process of making our work clearer
and richer. As described in the above quote, elaboration involves
adding, deleting, and replacing words. This mini-lesson focuses on the
following aspects of elaboration:
• adding details to make writing more specific

• adding details to make writing more descriptive
• taking out details

Introduction
Begin the mini-lesson on elaboration by writing the Bernard Malamud
quote on the board. Ask students what they think Malamud’s words
mean. Explain that Malamud is talking about elaboration—adding Americans
doughnuts
eat about
! huge am
10 billion
doughnuts
each yea
1 ount of frie r—and I’m
forms of d and sug

words, deleting words, or replacing words to make a piece of writing fried dou ared dou one of the
gh. The Fre gh! Many m! That’s
nch eat bei cultures a lot of
The Mexica around the
ns eat chu gnets, pillo
rros, long 2 ws of frie world hav
The Greeks and thin d dough e
eat loukou 2 strips of covered
mas, frie fried dou in powere
d sugar.

stronger and clearer. Then write the following sentence on the
0 or 8. I’ve d dough gh rolled
never bee
2 shaped like in cinnam
n to Mexico the num on sugar.
There are , but I’d bers
many sto 3 like to go
ries about one day.
In the 170 who invent
0s, the Du ed the dou

board: The dog barked. Ask students for suggestions on how to make
tch in New ghnut.
City) call Amsterdam
ed fried bits (now New
of dough York
(Do you olykoeks,
think we or “oily cak
5 ’d eat so 4 es.”
“oily cak many dou
es”?) The ghnuts if

the sentence more specific and descriptive.
y didn’t hav they were
a sailor e holes in called
Grammar

claimed he them. In
6 invented the 1800s,
Elizabeth, the doughn
had made ut. His mo
Activities

olykoeks ther,
Hanson stu for him to
ck an oly take on a
koek on sea voyage
That Reall

his hands the spoke .
free to stee of the ship
r. The oly ’s wheel.
He needed

Teach
Another koek got
y Grab ‘Em!,

story say a hole in both
s that Eliz the middle
how the abeth Gre and becam
doughnut gory bak e a doughn
got its nam ed a nut ut.
e. Later, in the mid
Grades 3–5

You can people pul dle of the
call doughn led out the olykoek.
uts any nam That’s
e you wa nut and
nt to. I call created the
hole.
© 2010 by

them del
icious!

Distribute copies of the passage “A Fried Ring of Dough” on page
Sarah Glass
cock, Schol

55 to students. Read it aloud and ask them to follow along. Then
astic Teach
ing Resou

use the teaching guide on page 54 to discuss how the writer used
rces

elaboration in the passage.
(Also see the lessons on nouns on pages 5 10, verbs on
–
pages 17–22, and adjectives and adverbs on pages 23–28.)
Name ___
______ _________
_________
_________

Apply
_________
_________
_______
Date ___
______ ________

Find four
different
things in
lines belo your clas
w. Then sroom tha
t are blue.

Duplicate the How Blue Am I? reproducible on page 58 and
think of Write the
describe how to des
it. Write cribe eac name of
the name h speciﬁc each thin
on the cor color. Cre g on the
responding ate a pain
paint can t color nam
. e to

give a copy to each student. After going over the directions,
model how you would choose something in the classroom
that is blue and create a paint color name to describe that
shade of blue. It could be a wall color, a piece of clothing,
rces
ing Resou
astic Teach

the cover of a book, or a student’s eye color. When students
cock, Schol
Sarah Glass

have completed the reproducible, place them in groups so
2010 by
s 3–5 ©

they can share and compare their paint colors.
‘Em!, Grade

Choose one
of your colo
Really Grab

shade of r names
paint. and write
a sho rt ad for
that
That
Activities
Grammar

53

Adding Details to Make Writing More Specific
Be specific about names, places, and other information.

• rnest Hemingway once said, “All our words
E 2 The writer gives three specific examples of
from loose using have lost their edge.” Words countries and their fried-dough treats.
like very, a lot, and really don’t add specific
6 The writer adds the name of the sailor. If you
details to our writing. We need to use words
had invented something, wouldn’t you want
that still have their edge.
everyone to know your name?

Adding Details to Make Writing More Descriptive
Use details to create vivid pictures in readers’ minds.

• ven nonfiction—especially nonfiction—needs
E 1 Compare the two phrases a lot of doughnuts and

descriptive details. a huge amount of fried and sugared dough. What
• ncourage students to incorporate sensory
E picture pops into your mind when you read each
images into their writing. The sentence The phrase?
dog is big and nice doesn’t give a reader many 4 Again, the writer gives the specific name of the
clues, but the sentence That black Lab is as Dutch treat olykoeks, and that it means “oily cakes”
tall as a Shetland pony, but he’s as gentle as in English.
a lamb helps readers clearly picture the dog.

Taking Out Details
Stay on topic. When you read your writing, look for details that don’t belong or that
you’ve repeated.
• very word has to count. In our eagerness to
E 3 The writer loses sight of the topic. She may
convey exactly what we mean in our writing, want to go to Mexico but that doesn’t have
it can be easy to include too many details that anything to do with doughnuts, so she deleted the
are repetitive or are unnecessary. last sentence.
• e sometimes fall in love with some of the
W 5 Some readers might feel that this is
words we use and hate to give them up. If unnecessary information. However, the writer has
we don’t take out repetitive or unnecessary placed this sentence in parentheses to show she
details, we may lose our audience. knows it isn’t completely necessary. It could be
cut, but the writer steps in at the beginning and
end of the passage, so she is being true to her voice
in this passage.

54

MODEL PASSAGE

Elaboration

A Fried Ring of Dough
Americans eat about 10 billion doughnuts each year—and I’m one of them! That’s a lot of
doughnuts! huge amount of fried and sugared dough! Many cultures around the world have
1
forms of fried dough. The French eat beignets, pillows of fried dough covered in powered sugar.
2
The Mexicans eat churros, long and thin strips of fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar.
2
The Greeks eat loukoumas, fried dough shaped like the numbers

2
0 or 8. I’ve never been to Mexico, but I’d like to go one day.
3
There are many stories about who invented the doughnut.
In the 1700s, the Dutch in New Amsterdam (now New York
City) called fried bits of dough olykoeks, or “oily cakes.”
4
(Do you think we’d eat so many doughnuts if they were called
5
“oily cakes”?) They didn’t have holes in them. In the 1800s,
named Hanson Gregory
a sailor ^ claimed he invented the doughnut. His mother,
6
Elizabeth, had made olykoeks for him to take on a sea voyage.
Hanson stuck an olykoek on the spoke of the ship’s wheel. He needed both
his hands free to steer. The olykoek got a hole in the middle and became a doughnut.
Another story says that Elizabeth Gregory baked a nut in the middle of the olykoek. That’s
how the doughnut got its name. Later, people pulled out the nut and created the hole.
You can call doughnuts any name you want to. I call them delicious!

Elaboration makes your writing clear, specific, and vivid. In this
passage, you’ll see:
• adding details to make writing more specific
• adding details to make writing more descriptive
• taking out unnecessary details

55

WRITING PROMPTS

Elaboration
$- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

Would You Elaborate on That?
Wr ite yo ur
Write! Think about a penny. Quickly write down as many words and phrases ful l resp on se
that come to your mind about the coin. Use them in the box below. Then write a on a sepa ra te

sh eet of pa per.
paragraph describing a penny. Choose which words from the box to include.

A penny . . .

With the Rest of the Class: Share words and phrases from the box so your teacher can list
them on the board. Which words did you use, too? Which words most surprised you?

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

One More Detail
Example
Write! Create a character to write a story about. Begin by writing
whether it’s a person or an animal—or something else. Then add
details, one line at a time. Get more and more specific with your
details. Aim for at least ten lines of description.

With the Rest of the Class: Share your list with the rest of the
class. Talk about how you created your character. How did you decide Wr ite yo ur
ful l resp on se
which details to add? Were you able to see your character more clearly
on a sepa ra te
the more details you added? sh eet of pa per.

56

ACTIVITIES: Elaboration
Combine-and-Refine Shared Writing
Select a variety of objects for groups to study, such as a holiday ornament, a fabric
swatch, a pickle, a maraca or other musical instrument, and so on. Give an object to
each group. Allow time for everyone in a group to study the object. Then ask each
member to write a description of the object. Urge students to make their descriptions as clear
and rich as they can and to use their senses to help them describe the object. After everyone
shares their writing, have group members work together to combine all their descriptions and
refine them into one description.
With the Class: After a student from each group reads aloud its final description to the rest of
the class, ask the other groups: Can you guess what their object is?

Could You Be More Specific?
When you describe how to do something, you have to be very specific. Each step has to
be written down clearly and in order. Give the following instructions for writing how-
to’s in pairs:
• hink about something you both know how to do or something you both know how to
T
make. Do not talk to each other about the steps or any other details.
• fter one of you writes the first step, the other one writes the next step. Trade off until
A
your how-to is complete.
• ow you can read the entire how-to together and talk about the steps.
N
• ecide together whether the how-to is specific enough. Add, replace, or take away details
D
to make your how-to clear and specific.
With the Class: Have pairs exchange how-tos. Can they make any suggestions so the other pair’s
how-to is more specific? Do they think they could successfully follow the steps in the how-to?

News Flash! Take It Away!
Material: newspapers
Newspapers use headlines to tell what a story is about. A really good headline is
short, but it has to have enough information to grab a reader’s attention.

Americans Gobbled Up 10 Billion Doughnuts Last Year
With students, study the headlines in the newspapers. Then challenge them to think about
what they did yesterday. What were the highlights of their day? Challenge students to write
headlines that describe their day. Remind them to keep the headlines short and to take out any
information they really don’t need.
With the Class: Have students share headlines with a partner and ask pairs to think about these
questions: Which headlines really caught your partner’s attention? Which headlines did he or she
think could be cut even more?

57

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

Elaboration

How Blue Am I?
Find four different things in your classroom that are blue. Write the name of each thing on the
lines below. Then think of how to describe each specific color. Create a paint color name to
describe it. Write the name on the corresponding paint can.

1. 2.

3. 4.

Wr ite yo ur
Choose one of your color names and write a short ad for that ful l resp on se
shade of paint. on a sepa ra te
sh eet of pa per.
58

All About Sentences

] One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.
—Kenneth Koch

A sentence can consist of just one word—“Go!”—or it can contain
complex combinations of every part of speech. This mini-lesson
focuses on the following aspects of sentences:

• types of sentences
• simple sentences
• combining sentences
• complex sentences

Introduction
Begin the mini-lesson on sentences by writing on the board a short definition such as
the following: “A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. It must
always contain a subject and a verb: After he left school, Lester ran home
and changed into his baseball uniform.” Then discuss Kenneth Koch’s
explanation of a sentence at the top of the page. Ask students to use what
they’ve learned about the parts of speech to explain Koch’s words. What do
a chameleo
a horse’s,
you get if
n? You get
you cros
a sea hors
s a horse,
1
e! This tiny
a monkey,
a kangaroo
, and
and its tail fish has a
is long and head shap
a monkey’ 2 curved and ed like
s. The male can grasp
sea horse things like
are born carries egg
. Finally, s in a pou
the eyes ch until the
of a sea

Teach
like a cham horse can babies
eleon’s. Sea move inde
prehistor horses reall pendently
ic creature y do look
. like some
They are kind of
bony fish.
3
Sea hors Instead of
es suck food scales, thei
out of the
4 r thin skin
that will covers a
go through water thro chain of
ugh their bony ring
their snou long snou s.
Sea hors ts. ts. They’ll
es are poo eat anything
sea grass. r swimmer
Grammar

Holding s, so they
on to the spend mos

Distribute copies of the passage “A Fish That’s a Poor Swimmer?” on
larger fish. blades of t of their
Sea hors grass with time han
Activities

es can also their tails ging out
they blen change colo , they esca in
d into the r. This help pe being
backgrou s them avoi eaten by
other
That Really

Did you 5 nd. d being eate
notice I said n, too, beca
her eggs that the use
in the male males and

page 61 to students. Read it aloud and ask them to follow along.
not the fem
Grab ‘Em!,

’s pouch. ales carry
to a mon Then he the eggs?
th until the fertilizes The female
babies are the eggs
can prod born. Like and carries deposits
Grades 3–5

uce anyw other fish, them for
here from babies are about two
5 to 200 called “fry weeks
Sea hors fry. .” A male
es may be
sea horse
© 2010 by

poor swim

Then use the teaching guide on page 60 to discuss the variety of
your aqu mers, but 6
arium at their hom
home! 7 e really is
the sea.
Sarah Glassc

Don’t try
to raise one
8 in
ock, Schola

sentences in the passage.
stic Teachi
ng Resour

(Also see the lessons on phrases and clauses on pages 47–52 and
ces

the other lessons as necessary.)

Apply Name ____
____ ________
________
________
________
________
________
_____
Date ____
____ ________
_

Duplicate the Spin a Sentence reproducible on page 64 and give a A sentence
can be simp
le, compou
nd, or com
plex.
The dish
ran away

copy to each student. Review the examples of the simple, compound,
with the
spoon.
The dish
ran away
with the
stayed hom spoon, but
e. the knife
and fork
When the

and complex sentences at the top of the page. Then go over the
dish ran
away with
fork felt the spoo
Let the spin very lone n, the knif
ner tell you ly. e and
use a pen what kind
cil and a of sentence
paper clip to write.
sentence to create (The pictu
the spinner.) re above

directions with students and make sure they understand how to use
s on a sepa shows how
rate shee Spin the to
t of paper. spinner six
times. Writ
e your
ces

a pencil and a paper clip to make the spinner operational. Model
ng Resour
stic Teachi
ock, Schola

spinning and writing the corresponding kind of sentence. Point out
Sarah Glassc
© 2010 by

to students that they can write any type of sentence—declarative,
Grades 3–5
Grab ‘Em!,

interrogative, exclamatory, or imperative.
That Really
Activities
Grammar

59

Types of Sentences
There are four types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative.

• eclarative sentences are statements.
D 1 The first sentence in this passage is a question,
• nterrogative sentences are questions.
I so it’s an interrogative sentence.

• xclamatory sentences show strong feeling
E 8 The last sentence in this passage is a
and end with exclamation points. command—and it shows strong feeling—so it’s
both an imperative and an exclamatory sentence.
• mperative sentences give commands.
I
• sentence can be a combination of types, for
A
example, both exclamatory and imperative.
Talk about whether other combinations
are possible, such as a sentence that is
both interrogative and imperative or both
declarative and exclamatory.

Simple Sentences
A simple sentence is an independent clause.

• simple sentence has one subject and one
A 3 This simple sentence is probably the shortest
verb—although the subject and/or verb might sentence in the passage. It explains what kind of
be compound. fish sea horses are.
6 Although this sentence contains a prepositional
phrase, it’s still a simple sentence.

Compound Sentences
A compound sentence is composed of two or more complete sentences (independent clauses).

• oordinating conjunctions—for, and, nor,
C 2 The coordinating conjunction and combines
but, or, yet, so—or semicolons can be used these two sentences: This tiny fish has a head
to combine the sentences. Except in very shaped like a horse’s. Its tail is long and curved and
short sentences, a comma goes before the can grasp things like a monkey’s.
coordinating conjunction. 7 The coordinating conjunction but combines
• alk about how combining sentences with the
T these two sentences: Sea horses may be poor
conjunction but affects their relationship. If swimmers. Their home really is the sea.
the sentences had remained separate, some
kind of qualifier would be needed, such as
however or though.

Complex Sentences
A complex sentence consists of an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

• hen a dependent clause begins the sentence,
W 4 The dependent clause that begins this complex
it is set off with a comma. sentence is Instead of scales and is set off with
• how students that the dependent clauses in
S a comma.
the complex sentences in the passage can be 5 The dependent clause in this complex sentence
moved to another position within the sentence is because they blend into the background.
without changing its meaning.

60

MODEL PASSAGE

Sentences

A Fish That’s a Poor Swimmer?
What do you get if you cross a horse, a monkey, a kangaroo, and
1
a chameleon? You get a sea horse! This tiny fish has a head shaped like
a horse’s, and its tail is long and curved and can grasp things like
2
a monkey’s. The male sea horse carries eggs in a pouch until the babies
are born. Finally, the eyes of a sea horse can move independently

like a chameleon’s. Sea horses really do look like some kind of
prehistoric creature.
They are bony fish. Instead of scales, their thin skin covers a chain of bony rings.
3 4
Sea horses suck food out of the water through their long snouts. They’ll eat anything
that will go through their snouts.
Sea horses are poor swimmers, so they spend most of their time hanging out in
sea grass. Holding on to the blades of grass with their tails, they escape being eaten by other
larger fish. Sea horses can also change color. This helps them avoid being eaten, too, because
they blend into the background.
5
Did you notice I said that the males and not the females carry the eggs? The female deposits
her eggs in the male’s pouch. Then he fertilizes the eggs and carries them for about two weeks
to a month until the babies are born. Like other fish, babies are called “fry.” A male sea horse
6
can produce anywhere from 5 to 200 fry.
Sea horses may be poor swimmers, but their home really is the sea. Don’t try to raise one in
7 8
your aquarium at home!

A sentence has a subject and a verb. It expresses a complete thought.
In this passage, you’ll see:
• different types of sentences • simple sentences
• compound sentences • complex sentences

61

WRITING PROMPTS

Sentences
$ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -

Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

I Like Your Type
Write! Imagine this scene: A kid is carrying a skateboard up a hill in a Wr ite yo ur
ful l resp on se
park and accidentally drops it. Write a four-sentence short story about what
on a sepa ra te

happens to the runaway skateboard. Include each type of sentence, in any sh eet of pa per.
order, in your story: declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative.

With the Rest of the Class: Share your story with the rest of the class. Talk about the
similarities and differences among your stories.

$-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -
Name _______________________________________________________________ Date _______________

My Life So Far
Write! Suppose you wrote a book about your life up to this point. What would the first
paragraph of your book be? Would you start at the very beginning? Would you start with today?
Would you start with the most exciting thing that has ever happened to you? Would you start with
the very first memory you have? Would you start with a family story about you as baby?
After jotting down your ideas, write that first paragraph. Read your draft. Think about the
sentences. Do they all begin the same way: subject then verb? Revise your paragraph to include a
variety of simple, compound, and complex sentences.

With the Rest of the Class: Your teacher may collect your paragraphs in a folder or notebook
with the title Our Lives So Far: Chapter One. Read everyone’s paragraph. What do you notice
about the variety of sentences you see? Write your comments on a sticky note and attach it to
each paragraph. Be sure to sign your note.

To the Teacher: Collect students’ paragraphs in a folder or notebook and supply sticky notes to students.

62

ACTIVITIES: Sentences
That’s Simple
Have pairs work together to create a choral poem. For each stanza of the poem, they
should complete the simple sentences below by recognizing whether they need to
supply a singular or a plural noun and verb.
There’s a (noun) behind the (noun).
A (noun) (verb) behind the (noun).
There are (noun) behind the (noun).
(noun) (verb) behind the (noun).
Pairs should take turns reading aloud the lines of the choral poem.

Example of a stanza:
Partner 1: There’s a pig behind the couch. Partner 2: A pig slides behind the couch.
Partner 1: There are giraffes behind the door. Partner 2: Giraffes hide behind the door.
With the Class: Set aside time for pairs to perform their choral poems for the class and then
answer any questions the audience has.

Compound Interest
Have each group review a favorite picture book. Each member reads it
independently and then writes his or her opinion of it in two or three sentences.
Then tell students to work together to decide how to combine some of their
individual sentences to create a group review of the book. Remind them to use coordinating
conjunctions to combine the sentences: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
With the Class: Have groups present their opinions orally or in written form. If they choose an
oral presentation, allow time for them to practice, and then share it with the class. Ask groups to
talk about how they worked together to combine the sentences.

Growing Sentences, Word by Word
Materials: Ten index cards, a marker for each student

Play a sentence game with the group. Have each student write down a different word
on each of ten index cards, including a variety of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
and prepositions. Give students these directions to play:
• ombine all your cards, shuffle them, and turn them facedown on a table or a desk.
C
• ake turns drawing a card. When everyone has a card, try to put them together to form a
T
sentence. If you can’t form a sentence, take turns drawing a new card until you can. Write
it down. Then decide whether you can rearrange the words to rewrite the sentence.
• ee how many sentences you can form before you run out of cards.
S
With the Class: Merge two groups. Have them try to combine a sentence from each group using
coordinating conjunctions—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Ask students to identify the type of
sentences they created—declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, or imperative.

63

ACTIVITY

Name _____________________________________________________________ Date _________________

SENTENCES

Spin a Sentence
A sentence can be simple, compound, or complex.

Simple sentence: The dish ran away with the spoon.

Compound sentence: dish ran away with the spoon, but the knife and fork
The

stayed home.

Complex sentence:
When the dish ran away with the spoon, the knife and
fork felt very lonely.

Let the spinner tell you what kind of sentence to write. (The picture above shows how to
use a pencil and a paper clip to create the spinner.) Spin the spinner six times. Write your
sentences on a separate sheet of paper.

#

64

Grammar activities gr 3-5

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