Scambled Sentences!

Building sentences is a hard topic for my firsties. It takes us a lot of practice to create sentences that have the correct word order and details. So we start early in the year by working on unscrambling sentences to get us thinking.

In the beginning we do a lot of whole class scrambled sentences (usually with our phonic focus). The kids work together to unscramble the sentence and make it into something that "sounds good". And as an added bonus... the kiddos use positional words to describe where they want the words to go... " the word red should go between the and hen" for example.

Then we transition into partner work with sentences that are written on index cards. They unscramble their sentence while I roam about and check their reading skills, partner skills, and correctness. They switch with another group when they have finished. All in all they work on about 4-5 sentences in about 10 min. But the best part is the conversation between the kids. I love when it comes down to..."no, no red has to go here because its telling about the hen" or "wait let's read it again to make sure its sounds right."  Words to die for!

And of course some independent practice to finish it all up. They do this at workshop :)  I have two versions one with five boxes for the beginners and one with room for a whole string of words for my advanced kiddos. And you can have them too, just click the pics to download!

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Have fun unscrambling!