Getting Grammar Back into Daily Teaching

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Grammar has been one of those forgotten subjects since I entered in the teaching field in 2006. Writing workshop, Math workshop, Reading workshop has been the trend and while they offer differentiated lessons, it has taken up some valuable time slots. One of those time slots for me has been grammar.


So....why now? Well, it is important! Have you read emails that do not have a capitalized "I" when it stands alone? Have you seen missing commas or the wrong end punctuation too?

Grammar is a skill that needs to be mastered!



HOW? I will tell you in just 15 short minutes 4 days per week, that is how. Here is the process I took.

First- I read the common core standards. You can find them HERE if you need a shortcut.

Next- I broke up the items that needed to be taught into 4 big chunks since our report cards happen 4 times a year.


  • Quarter 1- Noun, Verbs, Simple Sentences, and Adjectives

  • Quarter 2-Subject/verb agreement, Pronouns, Prepositions, and Adverbs

  • Quarter 3- Coordinating/Subordinating Conjunctions and Compound sentences

  • Quarter 4- Complex, Compound, and Simple Sentences 
Then- I found and created handouts with assessments for each skill. I usually spend a week on a skill and then I find a mentor sentence to go with that skill. The week of the mentor sentence we will do a "What do I notice or wonder about?" followed up labeling each part of speech we have learned, then revise the sentence with the skill we are learning, and finally imitate the sentence on our own and share. 

For Example:

Skill week:
Day 1- What is a verb? Identify verbs both regular and irregular
Day 2- Linking verbs vs Action verbs
Day 3- Vivid verbs vs boring verbs
Day 4- Identify verbs together in sentences and choose two boring verbs and make them more vivid in a sentence

Mentor Sentence week:
Day 1- Read "Come on, Rain" and put our thumb up when we hear our mentor sentence. Read it together and paste in our notebooks.
Day 2- Identify all the parts of speech in our sentence: The first drops plop down big, making dust dance all around us!
Day 3- Revise the sentence changing "plop" and "dance."
Day 4- Create our own sentences using vivid verb word list.



Purchase HERE

No comments