Mad Libs are a well-known, inventive way for your students to use parts of speech to create a wacky story. This twist on the familiar game uses what the children come up with and places the parts of speech in a song. For example, the Beatles' song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" uses many adjectives and nouns that can be replaced with your students' ideas. Instruct the students' to come up with a girl's name and two nouns. They may suggest something like "Sarah in the Kitchen with Elephants." Sing the "Mad Libs" suggestions to the tune of the song you are using. You could also use popular songs from artists that your class enjoys or classics like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."
Adapt a grammar game around the familiar bingo style of play. Each card has a column of five boxes for each letter in the word "Bingo." Written in each box is an answer to a question about grammar and the parts of speech. You can categorize each column to deal with a particular subject. For example, one column can be devoted to verbs and the answers can be listed as past tense, present tense, future tense, passive verb and action verb. Other options for categories could include nouns, prepositions, conjunctions and adjectives and adverbs. To play the game, you call out a letter and then ask a question. The students then try to find the answer on their card and cover it with a bingo chip. If you call out "B" and ask what kind of noun is St. Louis, your pupils will search for proper nouns under the B column on their cards. Five correct answers in a row wins the game.
This quiz game requires all the students to be divided up into two teams. Draw a diamond on the board to resemble a baseball field. The first team selects a "batter" to answer the first question. This "batter" chooses either a single, double, triple or home run question. The questions are divided up into skill levels, with a single being the easiest questions and home run the hardest. The questions can deal with a variety of grammar topics including verb tenses, complex sentences and subject-verb agreement. If the player gets the question wrong, the team receives an out, and three outs are allowed per inning. The team with the most runs wins the game.
For this grammar game select two students as opponents. Choose a base sentence to begin, and make sure the example is in present tense. The first opponent must invent a new modifier or subject before the verb in the sentence. For example, the sentence could be: "My aunt is going to the grocery store." The student may then add something like "My aunt, who wears funny hats, is going to the grocery store." The next student includes a separate modifier: "My aunt, who wears funny hats, is going to the grocery store after she eats all the spaghetti." Keep the sentence structuring going until one opponent can no longer figure out an addition to the sentence.