Making students the stars of a lesson keeps them interested. To accomplish this task, tell each student to write on an index card a short sentence using the simple subject of his or her first name describing something he or she did the previous night, such as "Jose scored a winning goal" or "Erika fell asleep early." Gather the index cards and write all the predicates on the board. As a group, have the class try to guess who "belongs" to each predicate.
Play sentence charades. First, compile a list of predicates that can be easily acted out -- for example, "walks like a duck," "hits a home run" and "plays soccer." Give a student a predicate to act out. As he tries to act out the predicate, students must phrase guesses in complete sentences using the actor's name as the subject. For example, a student might guess, "Jack walks like a duck."
"The Tale of Mr. Morton" (at www.schoolhouserock.tv/Tale.html) may be the most famous song teaching parts of a sentence, but many other educators and artists have put grammar to music. Suzy Red has set numerous grade school lessons to the tunes of popular folk songs, including "Subject! Predicate!" using the song "If You're Happy and You Know It." (See suzyred.com/subjects.html.) If these or other predicate songs do not fit the personality of your class, try setting a predicate lesson to music yourself. Use familiar nursery rhymes, well-known classical pieces or even Billboard hits.
Write complete sentences on strips of paper; 1-by-12-inch strips work well. Give each student a sentence with the instruction to cut the sentence in two where the subject stops and the predicate begins. Put all of the subjects in one pile and the predicates in another. Ask one student at a time to draw a random subject and a random predicate and read the sentence aloud. Most likely, the sentences will be nonsensical, but they will still have an identifiable form. You may advance the lesson by assigning a diagramming exercise using the newly formed sentences.