Call and response activities invite participants to respond to a verbal cue with a specific response. Using a worksheet you prepared with sentences containing indirect objects, have a student call out the first sentence, “Marty gave Mary a cookie.” You respond, “Gave whom?” The class responds, “Gave Mary.” You repeat, “Gave whom?” and the class responds with the correct pronoun, “Gave her.” The activity helps students identify indirect nouns and then requires them to choose the correct object pronoun. If the class responds correctly, continue the activity using all sentences in the worksheet.
Prepare a selection of sentences you display on a whiteboard or smartboard. Prepare indirect pronoun cards with magnetic or sticky backs using “me,” “you,” “her,” “him,” “us,” “them” and “it.” Divide the class into teams. Flash the first sentence on the board and ask a member of the first team to run to the board, identify the indirect object and cover it with the correct indirect pronoun card. For example, using “I gave the gift to Mr. Palmer,” the student identifies Mr. Palmer as the indirect object and covers his name with the card “him.”
When using an indirect object, the sentence does not require a preposition in front of the noun or pronoun. Provide the class a worksheet with sentences where the indirect object follows a preposition, such as “Bill answered the phone for Mrs. Walker.” Divide the class into groups of three to four students. Have the groups scramble the sentences so the correct indirect pronoun appears between the verb and the direct object and nonessential words are discarded, such as “Bill answered her phone.” Time the exercise and provide reward points for the team with the most correct answers in the shortest time.
Construct pronoun placards where a single word such as “me,” “I,” “you,” “she,” “he,” “her,” “him,” ”we,” “us,” “them,” “they” and “it” appears on the placard. Display a sentence on the whiteboard or smartboard and point to the indirect object in the sentence. Have the student with the correct pronoun pop up and read the sentence, replacing the indirect noun with a pronoun. For example, “Bill showed his new car to Randy” could accurately read, “Bill showed him his new car.” The activity teaches students to differentiate between subjective and objective pronouns and to find the correct pronoun agreement. Extend the activity to individually replace each noun in the sentence for a more comprehensive pronoun review.