Plan an art project to help your students practice using and identifying direct object pronouns in a creative way. For instance, give out construction paper and markers and have the class illustrate original pictures; each must contain a subject, a verb and a direct object pronoun. Or, for younger or less artistically inclined students, provide a stack of magazines, scissors and glue to cut out and paste their images onto the construction paper. The students can then present their finished drawings or collages to the class and have the other students try to guess which is the direct object pronoun.
Playing Mad Libs, a word game whose title refers to spontaneous ad libs, is an entertaining way to get some direct object pronoun practice. Have your students construct their own wacky Mad Libs scenarios on sheets of notebook paper, purposefully leaving the components of a direct object pronoun sentence blank. Then, either pair off the students or place them into small groups to fill in the missing items. Have the students read the results of their Mad Libs to the rest of the class to compare the silly completed scenarios.
Give students a specific scenario, and then have them pair off or divide into small groups to write the script for a short, original skit. Students must incorporate direct object pronouns into these skits. One example of a scenario you could give the students to work with is a person shopping in a store and asking the store attendant if the store carries certain objects. After allowing for some rehearsal time, have the students present their original skits in front of the class.
Games are an entertaining, interactive way to practice direct object pronouns. One game you could adapt for this lesson is the classic Go Fish. Use an ordinary deck of playing cards for the game or create your own original deck using pictures of vocabulary words you're covering in class to boost the activity's relevance. Pair students off or divide them into small groups, then give each student a certain number of cards to play with. Students will take turns asking if other players have specific cards, to which the players in question will reply using direct object pronouns. The player who receives the most matches will be the winner of the game.