Students can enjoy themselves while participating in a scavenger hunt while reviewing the grammar rules for possessives. Make 10 or more labels that you will stick to the applicable objects around the room. Labels might say, "This globe belongs to Ms. Appleton" or "This mural belongs to the students." Students must find all of the hidden labels around the room and write down a statement in the possessive form corresponding to each label. For example, for the examples stated above, students should write "Ms. Appleton's globe" and "The students' mural."
Students can also reinforce their knowledge of possessive rules by identifying mistakes in sentences or phrases. Divide the class into two teams. Write a sentence or phrase on the board, pertaining to possession, that has a mistake in it. For example, "This is us house" or "The girl' dress." The two teams must race against each other to write down the correct version of the phrase. The team to successfully complete the most corrections first wins.
Pairs or groups of students can play a memory matching game to review possessive pronouns. Half the cards should have the person forms written on them, such as "I," "you," "he" and "we." The other half of the cards should have the corresponding possessive pronouns, such as "mine," "yours," "his" and "ours." With all of the cards spread out on a table face-down, the first player flips two cards over attempting to reveal a matching person-pronoun pair. Students continue flipping two cards attempting to make a match, while remembering the position of the cards that were previously flipped. The player to collect the most pairs wins. You can also make a similar memory card game to review possessive adjectives, such as "my," "your" and "our."
If you have a student who has finished class work early, or you want to assign an entertaining form of homework that parents can monitor, educational online games can fill these needs. Several grammar games that focus on possessives are online. For example, Harcourt School Publishers offers "Exploring for Possessives," where players must select the correct possessive form as they maneuver through cavernous terrain. Another option on the BBC Skillwise Apostrophes page offers a game where students can choose among three levels after reading a short review. Finally, First School Years site offers "Penalty Shootout," a game for one or two players. For each possessive question a player answers correctly, he has the opportunity to take a soccer penalty shot on goal.