Put Your Hands Together for Conjunctions

Conjunctions are joiners or connectors that bring together words, phrases, and clauses. A few of these important words follow:

And

But

Or

Nor

So

For

Until

After

Because

Since

To teach my son about how these words are used, I created an activity we'll be able to do again and again, with a template I'll use for practicing other skills too.

To get started I printed several pages of these right and left hands. Download a 1-page PDF here.

I used colored papers, but that's not necessary. After they were printed, I laminated and cut them out (including the hole inside the hand); yes, this is a bit of a pain but with a small craft knife, it went rather swiftly.

Once my hands were done, I cut some small strips of paper. Now I got busy writing parts of sentences on right and left hands with a fine-tip dry-erase marker. I also wrote the conjunction that would join them on the blank slips of paper. Here are some of the sentences I used:
During the race I swam and ran.
I got today's mail and put it on the desk.
Mom was tired after exercising at the gym.
I stayed awake until the sun came up.
Molly hated peas because they never stayed on her spoon.
Do you want popcorn or peanuts?
I do not like broccoli so I chose corn instead.

By laminating, the dry-erase markers wipe clean making the hands reusable!

When my son came home from school we read a great book by Brian P. Cleary. I'm a huge fan of his Words are CATegorical series and this book delivered the same whimsical illustrations I expected with the simple, clear definition of conjunctions my son needed.

My son also watched Schoolhouse Rock's "Conjunction Junction" video; I remember it from when I was a kid. This little song is certainly handy (and mighty catchy too; my son was singing it later that evening)!

With the hands laid on the table, it was up to my son to determine which conjunction was missing and join the hands together by looping the paper with the conjunction through the hands and stapling it. My son made quick work of the task and was excited to have joined the sentence fragments with the correct conjunctions.

Next time, I might scramble the fragments to make the exercise more challenging for him. 

Adjectives: A Touchy Subject (a sensory game)

It's been awhile since we played the Brown Bag Touch and Feel guessing game, but when my oldest son picked out a book at our library about touch recently, I wanted a way to revisit this particular sense. Given how much my son's writing lacks juicy details, a little adjective practice couldn't hurt either.

This game was easily played by both of our boys (a 3rd grader and preschooler). It's hard to tell which one of them enjoyed it more!

To prepare, I traced my oldest son's hand on heavyweight cardstock and cut out a series of hand shapes. To this I glued a variety of textures. I also used a clear plastic disposable dessert plate, and drew the hand on the bottom with permanent marker.

With my sensory hands made, I wrote adjectives to describe each on an index card.

Fluffy = quilt batting

Rough = burlap fabric

Feathery = feathers

Bumpy = created with paper-punched craft foam dots

Wet = water on the clear "hand" plate

Noisy = bubble wrap

Soft = polar fleece fabric

Leathery = faux leather left over from a DIY Halloween costume

Sticky = clear contact paper

Scratchy = sandpaper

When my oldest son came home from school, I wrapped a handkerchief around his eyes. (Yes, I made him wear my breast cancer survivor "think pink" bandanna!)

I put the sensory hands in front of him and asked that he touch each one and describe it to me. This was more challenging than we both originally thought. "It's rough," he said of both the sandpaper and burlap hands. I put them both back in front of him and asked, "Do they feel the same? If I couldn't feel them, I would think those two had the same texture based on your description."

Hm.

After working harder to describe each uniquely, the blindfold was removed. Now I gave him the index cards I had made earlier and asked him to match the adjectives with the correct sensory hand.

Later when our four-year old played the game, he didn't use the bandanna; we just let him look, feel, and describe what he was touching. His big brother was thrilled to read the cards to him so he could match the descriptive words with the correct textures. I was astounded to see how well he did!

My oldest son read two great children's books as part of this activity. Touch by James De Medeiros focused on texture and pressure, as well as demonstrating our feelings for someone through touch.

Soft and Smooth, Rough and Bumpy by Dana Meachen Rau explained how our skin and nervous system is responsible for our sense of touch.

Want to extend this lesson and learn more about the nervous system? Check out our Straw-Blown Neuron Diagram activity and book recommendation!

Word/Number/Game/Song/Food of the Week {Poster}

Can you tell I had trouble figuring out what to call this?

It's really just a poster.

But I hope this little poster gets my son's brain whirring all summer long. It introduces a new word, song, game, and food every week and works on a few basic math skills too.

I plan to laminate it and put it on the refrigerator with a fine-tip dry-erase marker. My oldest son can help write out the definition for the word of the week, solve the math problems, and fill in many of the other blanks, too.

Here's what I have in store for my son during week 1.

Word: Flabbergast

Number: 200

Game: Batter's Up Baseball (a free online computer game)

Song: Pop Fly by Justin Roberts

Food: Cranberries (dried)

I picked a few baseball-related items since my oldest son just began his summer baseball league. And I'm excited to introduce new foods to our whole family this summer since we'll be participating in community supported agriculture (our first weekly box of herbs and veggies will be ready for pick-up in a week or two!).

Download your own copy of this poster here. Print on legal paper.

CREDIT: This idea was inspired by the Shoopdedoop's Today's Number is… activity. Check it out here.

Could that BEE a Synonym or Antonym?

This game is a prelude to what will (hopefully) become some better writing on my boy's part. His stories are simple sentences with unimaginative adjectives, nouns, and verbs.

I wanted to open his mind to a wider, broader vocabulary. I thought a little synonyms and antonyms game might help.

I made two pages of hexagon magnets, each shape containing three words. Their antonyms and synonyms were featured on adjacent hexagons.

I printed the pages on magnet paper, tediously cut them out, and then hit the library for some great books.

Are you rolling your eyes? I know. I know. You're probably tired of hearing me gush all over Brian P. Cleary's books. I can't help it if they're the most fun language arts explanations I've found; my son loves them as much as I do. 

For this lesson, we read Stop and Go, Yes and No: What is an Antonym? and Stroll and Walk, Babble and Talk: More about Synonyms. Wildly creative illustrations, a rhythmic tempo, great explanation of the parts of speech, and examples galore! If you've never opened one of the Words are CATegorical books, run to your local library and check one out now.

Prep

Download our synonym/antonym hexagons free. Print on magnet paper (it costs about $6 for a 3-pack of sheets at the craft store; feed it through your printer one page at a time). Cut out.

Access a 2-page PDF of synonym/antonym hexagons here.

Play
I put all the magnets word-side-down in a small flat tub. One was drawn and placed on our refrigerator (any large metal surface will work). Then each of us picked five hexagons as our "hand." (It doesn't matter if the opponent sees your magnets.) Then we went back and forth trying to add the magnets in our hand to the refrigerator, matching up synonyms or antonyms on the words on the shapes. It doesn't take long before a honeycomb shape emerges!

If we didn't have any magnets to play, we drew a new one from the bucket. Still can't play? Then you forfeit your turn and the opponent gives it a shot.

Every time you are able to add a hexagon magnet to the refrigerator, you get another turn to play any magnet from your hand (no drawing on the second - or subsequent - plays during a turn, though).

Watch as you build an entire honeycomb of antonyms and synonyms!

The first player to play all of the hexagons in their hand wins.

Repetition to Remember Synonym vs. Antonym

With each hexagon that was played, my son and I said aloud whether the words we were matching were synonyms (words with a similar meaning) or antonyms (opposites). This reinforced what we learned from reading Cleary's books!

Top 10 Favorite Language Arts Activities of 2012

This mama is a word nerd ... and proud of it. These activities were created to help develop my son's reading and writing skills. Who knew language arts could be so fun?!?

No.1    Proofreading Police

Your child joins the proofreading police squad and examines evidence of grammar crimes. This activity has four great downloads and a must-read book recommendation. Find it all here.

No.2    Homophones Memory Game

Words that sound the same but mean very different things can certainly trip kids up. A fun game of memory makes matching homophones a blast. Two of the best children's fiction to pair with this activity are also recommended. Free printable game cards here.

No. 3    Compound Word Card Game

Compound words are especially fun when you learn them while playing a card game! Free printable game cards and instructions here.

No.4    Race Around the Nouns, Verbs, & Adjectives Game

Toss out the worksheets! Kids can test their understanding of nouns, verbs, and adjectives by playing a fun board game. Directions and downloads here.

No. 5    Word Dominoes

Children LOVE dominoes! Why not make some to have them practice matching words with their respective parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and nouns? Free download, DIY instructions, and game directions here.

No. 6    Word-Eating Whale

Turn an empty milk jug into a whale that's hungry for nouns, verbs, or other parts of speech. Kids will love scooping up bottle-cap words with their whale! Directions here.

No. 7     Pronoun Practice to the Moon and Back

Capitalize on kids' love of space, by challenging them to replace nouns with the correct pronoun in a race to the moon. The more right answers, the closer your child gets to the moon. Keep going and the rocket on his/her scorecard will come all the way back to earth! Everything you need - plus a great book recommendation - is here.

No. 8    Adjective Detective

Time for some super sleuthing with two amazing adjective detective activities: a treasure hunt and an adjective search-and-solve code story. Instructions, a printable, and cool adjective detective spy "glass" download are here.

No. 9    DIY Newspaper

EXTRA! EXTRA! Kids put on their reporter hats and record all the big stories in their lives with this fill-in newspaper template. Free printable here.

No. 10    Alphabetical Adjectives

Put the adjectives in alphabetical order by connecting the dots! Head here for a great book recommendation and free printable.

Word Dominoes [Practicing Parts of Speech]

I love words. I love my son. So, of course, I love doing language arts games with him. He thinks we’re playing. I know he’s learning.

That totally fills my cup.

Last summer at summer camp, my son played a wonderful game with dominoes that were imprinted with subtraction problems and answers. I decided it could easily be replicated with parts of speech. I was right.

I made four pages of dominoes imprinted with the names of four types of speech: adjectives, nouns, pronouns, and verbs and those types of words.

Make the Dominoes

I printed them on heavyweight cardstock, cut them out, and glued half of them to two sheets of 6mm craft foam. Using a craft knife and a ruler as a straight edge, I cut them out when they were dry. Then I glued the rest of the cut-outs to the back.

Download a 4-page PDF of word dominoes here.

Now, it was time for the fun!

Time to Play

With the glue dried, I dumped the dominoes in a small plastic tub. When my son came home, we reviewed what makes a:

1. pronoun (e.g. he, her, us, we, they, etc. and replaces nouns)

2. noun (a person, place, animal, or thing)

3. verb (action word)

4. adjective (describing word).

Then, he took one domino out of the tub. I told him to look at the domino. On one end (in a colored box) was a type of word (e.g. noun, adjective, etc.). The other end was a word (e.g. school, jump, she, etc.). His job was to place another domino perpendicular to that one that matched with either end.

For example, if his domino said verb and dog, he needed to find a domino that either had a verb on it (like jump) or the word noun, since the word dog is a noun.

One by one, my son pulled the dominoes out of the tub and arranged them on the table adjacent to others.

He wanted to close up the shape that was evolving on the table, so he often moved and replaced dominoes. This was great practice and a lot of fun, too.

I can’t wait until we play this again!

Alphabetical Adjectives Connect the Dots

I’m a writer. My son is not. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying to sharpen his language arts skills.

This word nerd came up with a sneaky way to do it, too: connect the dots!

To jog my son’s memory that adjectives are describing words, we read a Brian P. Cleary book. Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What is an Adjective? is fun and engaging language arts literature at its best.

The illustrations are clever and whimsical and the text is chock full of adjectives which are set off with color (the rest of the words are black). So far, every book from Cleary’s Words Are CATegorical series has been a hit with my son and me.

For a little adjective practice, I made a great puzzle.

Download a PDF of this connect-the-dots puzzle here.

The instructions were simple – start at the red star and connect the lowercase adjectives alphabetically. When you get to “z,” start over with uppercase adjectives until you’re back where you started. Lastly, connect the square dots drawing a line from number to number starting at one black star and ending at the other.

My son did quite well. He only had to use the eraser a few times and, when finished, he was so proud of his songbird connect-the-dots picture! (This mama writer was mighty proud too.)

Word-Eating Whale [Nouns & Verbs]

Did you see? Stores are already putting school supplies out!! To keep my son from forgetting some of the valuable information he learned in first grade, I thought a recap of parts of speech was in order.

My inspiration was the amazing recycled whale I saw on Growing Up Gardner. 

Once our empty gallon-sized plastic milk carton was rinsed out and dry, I outlined the mouth on the bottom of the carton and cut it out using a craft Exacto knife. 

Then I added the eyes and fins (oops, I forgot a blowhole!!) with a permanent marker.

I took the cap off the milk carton and grabbed a stash of plastic lids I’d been saving (21 in all). I divided the lids into two (almost even) groups and, with a permanent black marker, wrote verbs on about half of the lids and nouns on the rest.

Now I filled up the bathtub with a few inches of water and threw the lids in, word-side up.

Before doing anything else we read Nouns and Verbs Have a Field Day, a playful book about what nouns and verbs are and how much they need each other to make sentences. Super fun!

After reading, my two boys headed into the bathroom, stripped off their socks, and my oldest waded in the tub (the youngest joined in the fun shortly thereafter). I explained: “The whale is hungry. He only eats verbs for lunch. If he accidentally eats a noun, he’ll spit it back out into the water in disgust.”

My son steered the whale through the water, carefully scooping up lids. He held the whale upright to drain the excess water out of the milk jug lid’s hole before putting the verbs he’d caught into a plastic bin that I'd set out.

He made a few mistakes and really had to think when I told him “baseball” was not a verb. “But I can do it, Mom!” To which I responded, “You play baseball. And play is a verb, not baseball. It’s a thing.” Now he understood and made the whale spit the lid back out.

This whale has been loads of fun. Not only have we practiced nouns and verbs, but it's a great bath toy (my toddler loves it too!).

Shooting (Adjective) Hoops

We’re a college ball kinda family; there’s not too much NBA on at our house. Despite this, my son found out about the legendary Michael Jordan at school and has name dropped more than a few times how cool he is. When I read the review of Salt in His Shoes on Books 4 Learning, I knew I HAD to find a way to bring Michael Jordan and the book written by his mother and sister into our afterschool learning.

To reinforce parts of speech, I told my son to find adjectives in the story as I read Deloris and Roslyn Jordan’s book aloud. I gave him some orange slips of paper, each printed with a basketball. (Click the image below to download this PDF.)

When he heard a descriptive word, I stopped reading and he wrote the adjective on a basketball.

Finishing the story, I explained that each basketball was already worth one point. If he could wad up the paper and toss the adjective into the hoop (a bucket on the table), it would be worth another point. He had 12 points (the number of describing words he found) before he starting 'shooting hoops' with the adjectives. He finished the game with 15 points!

He had so much fun, he gathered the papers and bucket for another round. Could I have a little Michael Jordan on my hands, I wondered.

Maybe I should go sprinkle some salt in his shoes!

Pronoun Practice to the Moon and Back

Our Roy Orbison pronoun practice was great fun, but I could tell at the end my son was still a little foggy on how pronouns are used. This activity is meant to clear up the confusion.

It uses my son’s interest in space to excite him about learning pronouns!

First, we read the Grammar Tales book The Planet Without Pronouns by Justin McCory Martin. This book was EXACTLY what I needed to explain just how helpful and useful pronouns are.

The main character, Stanley, notices when talking to the residents of planet Krimular that they don’t use pronouns! He gives his buddy Zik a lesson explaining, “Pronouns are small words such as I, you, me, her, or him. … They are used in place of nouns to make sentences simpler. Think of them as ‘shortcut’ words.” Ah, yes, shortcut words, why hadn’t I thought to explain them that way? This was something my son could relate to!

When my son finished reading (He’s a level K reader so I helped him with some of the more challenging words), I gave him some folded practice cards and a “to the moon and back” scorecard.

His job was to pick a card, read the front, and either replace the highlighted word(s) or add the pronoun if it was absent.

Once he’d done this, he opened the flap on the card and if he got it right, he could move the rocket ship one line closer to the moon. When he got to the moon, he rotated the rocket ship around, kept practicing, and headed back to Earth.

He loved this activity and wanted to continue practicing with the leftover cards once his space journey had ended. Success!

Directions to Make it Yourself

Download my PDF of the pronoun practice cards and “to the moon and back” scorecard. The pages in the file are ordered so you need to print page 1, flip it over and print page 2, and so on. Once printed on heavyweight cardstock, cut the cards, fold on the dotted line, and use a Exacto craft blade to cut the "V". Tuck the folded flap under the point on the V for each card.

To make the scorecard, cut out the rocket ship and tab. Use an Exacto craft blade to cut out the rectangle for your rocket ship slider. Then poke holes in the rocket ship and tab with a brad. Put the tab behind the “to the moon and back” scorecard lining up the whole you punched inside the open slit you cut out.

Put the brad in the rocket ship, place on top of the scorecard and thread it through the tab that’s behind the scorecard. Spread the brad apart tightly. Now you’re ready to blast off!

Practicing Pronouns with Roy Orbison

As I was leaving my son’s classroom the other day after volunteering, I heard the teacher talking to the kids about pronouns. Uh oh, I thought. Knowing how the other parts of speech have been hard for my son to distinguish, I immediately began brainstorming … and Googling.

Using a song to identify pronouns wasn’t my idea; it originated from a Prentice Hall series of worksheets I found here.

When my son came home, we watched a Schoolhouse Rocks video to jog his memory about what words are pronouns and when/how they’re used.

Then I gave him some small pronoun cards, which he put in alphabetical order.

Now I played the Roy Orbison song “Running Scared.” (I found it on YouTube. He didn’t watch, but rather just listened.)

It was my son’s job to pull out the cards with pronouns he heard in the song. He listened twice to be sure he’d found them all.

Then I gave him the lyrics I’d typed up. He circled every occurrence of the pronouns in the song.

Lastly, he graphed the pronouns to see which Orbison sang the most. My son LOVES graphing and always treats it like a contest to see which word, number, or object will win. It was a tie!

Download a PDF of the pronoun cards and graph here. Click on the lyrics to download them.

Adjective Detective [Hunt & Seek]

After playing the nouns, verbs, adjectives board game I made with my son several times, I realized he needed other great ways to practice the parts of speech. Language arts just doesn’t “stick” with my son like math.

He has suddenly developed an affinity for mysteries (we’ve been reading the Hardy Boys Secret Files books to him at night and he’s been reading James Skofield’s Detective Dinosaur books to us). The following two activities capitalize on his newfound interest.

Download this Adjective Detective magnifying glass here.

I designed a magnifying glass for my son to use when he played. (To make one, simply cut it out [including the center] and laminate with heavyweight laminate.) Voila! Now he had a spy glass to remind him of what adjectives tell you (e.g. weather, sound, shapes, etc.).

Adjective Detective Hunt

Before my son came home from school, I picked out five objects to describe and wrote adjectives (five each) that describe each on a sticky note. When he walked in the door, I told him that he (aka Adjective Detective) had a mystery to solve.

He needed to use the adjective clues on the first sticky note (black, white, round, hard, fun) to find the object it described (his soccer ball). On that object was tacked another sticky note with five more adjectives (white, creamy, refreshing, smooth, cool). He used his super sleuthing mind to deduce that what those adjectives were describing was none other than milk! There he found another sticky note with five adjectives.

One by one, the adjective clues led him from object to object, until he was rewarded by finding the final object (his colored pencils), which also had a congratulatory note and a sweet treat as a reward.

Adjective Detective Seek

Another day, I decided that it was time for my son to find some adjectives of his own. I gave my little Adjective Detective a story that I wrote. Each sentence of the story has one adjective (hopefully, I tried to be careful to not include any others). 

Download this story here.

The story is about Detective Dog who works so hard to welcome new teddy bears to the force by bringing in assorted foods each day. Unfortunately, the bears never touch his homemade goodies.

After my son read the story all the way through (I helped him with some of the tough words), I told him that in order to find out why the teddy bears never eat, he’d have to find the adjective in each sentence. He circled it and wrote the first letter of the adjective down below. All of these adjectives (and their letters) were clues to solve the mystery.

So, why do the teddy bears never eat, you’re wondering, right? Because they are always stuffed!!

My son demonstrated some real patience with this activity, carefully looking for the adjectives and being excited as the answer to the mystery began to reveal itself. It was a lot of reading but I was so encouraged to hear him say “Yes, I knew it!” when he correctly identified the adjectives!