DLTK's Bible Activities for Kids
Graduation Sentence Sequencing

by Leanne Guenther

Sentence Sequencing:

What is it?

An activity/game that allows children to practice combining nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc to make a sentence.

Many of the same words from the word wall words, word lists and tracer pages are included as sentence sequencing cards on this page.  I sometimes like to combine cards from previous lessons with this week's for more challenging play.

Activity Suggestions

1. Free Play

• arrange the cards into piles (you can add coloured backgrounds to make it easier for the children to sort the words into nouns, verbs, etc).
• allow the children to create their own sentences using the cards.
• If you pre-sort the cards for them it makes it simpler.  You may not want to provide them with all the sets at once.  Here are some set ideas.
   
  • three piles: helpers, nouns and emotions
    Example sentence:  The boy was happy.
  • four piles: helpers, nouns, verbs and nouns
    Example sentence:  The boy ate the apple.
  • five piles: helpers, nouns, verbs, colors and nouns.
    Example sentence:  The boy ate a red apple.
  • six piles: helpers, emotions, nouns, verbs, colors and nouns.
    Example sentence:  The happy boy ate a red apple.
• Get silly! It's fun to create silly sentences (like "The angry boy ate a green monster.") Encouraging the children to create silly sentences can help keep them involved and motivated in this activity.
• ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY: Have the child spend some time creating their favorite sentence. 
  • Once the sentence is completed, encourage them to write (or dictate, depending on their skill level) a short story to go with the sentence.
  • With young children, 3 sentences is a great story length.  It helps reinforce the fact that a story has a BEGINNING, a MIDDLE and an END.
  • Let them illustrate their story (draw pictures).
  • Talk about the roles of the author and the illustrator of a story.

2. Memory (Guided) Play

• In this activity, we'll use sight (showing), sound (reading) and repetition (memory) to reinforce sentence structure.
• arrange the cards into piles (the verbs have a colored background to make it a tad easier for the kids to sort things) If you pre-sort the cards for them it makes it simpler.  You may not want to provide them with all the sets at once.  Here are some set ideas.
   
  
  • three piles: helpers, nouns and emotions
    Example sentence:  The boy was happy.
  • four piles: helpers, nouns, verbs and nouns
    Example sentence:  The boy ate the apple.
  • five piles: helpers, nouns, verbs, colors and nouns.
    Example sentence:  The boy ate a red apple.
  • six piles: helpers, emotions, nouns, verbs, colors and nouns.
    Example sentence:  The happy boy ate a red apple.
     
• Create a sentence, show it to the child and read it aloud twice.

• Now put one of the cards back in the appropriate (noun, verb, emotion, color) pile 

(you may want to mix up the pile and then set some or all the pile out so the child can see their options, like so):

Now have the child chose the correct card from memory to replicate the sentence you showed them.

• When the child has mastered replacing a single card, try removing two of the cards (maybe kissed and dinosaur in our example above).  Then remove three, etc.  Progressively make the sentences longer until they are successfully replicating complex sentences -- For example, "The happy dinosaur and the green monster ate a red apple."
• Eventually you can move away from showing them the sentence.  You can just READ the sentence to them and have them replicate it.
• Don't forget to throw in some silly sentences to keep the children's energy level up!

Template Instructions

Flash card type templates.  You can use these in a variety of activities (see activity suggestions above).

• Print out the template of choice.
• Colour pieces, as necessary.
• OPTIONAL:  Glue to a thin piece of cardboard (ex: old cereal boxes) and let dry (you can also laminate or cover with clear contact paper to make them last longer)
• Cut out the cards.  This step may require adult assistance.
• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

6 word wall words - Graduation   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 more word wall words - Graduation   (color)  or  (B&W)

2 NOUNS + 4 EMOTIONS   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 PICTURE VERBS (past tense)   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 PICTURE VERBS (present tense)   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 SIGHT WORD VERBS (past/present)   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 SIGHT WORD VERBS (past/present)   (color)  or  (B&W)

6 ADJECTIVES - COLORS    (color)  or  (B&W)

6 HELPERS    (color)  or  (B&W)

Fry Frequency Words - these are all black and white sight word cards

Printable version for these instructions