Today we got to play a little Sentence Smack Down. Sentence Smack Down is one of my favorite lessons of the year. In class we have been talking about what makes a sentence. The students knew that sentences needed a capital and a period but I wanted them to know a bit more. We started to look at two-word sentences. In fact the students right now our hunting for two-word sentences in the books they are reading.
When we started to look at these two word sentences we noticed that the two-word sentences had a subject and a verb. That is the whole idea of Sentence Smack Down. For our first round of Sentence Smack Down we looked at simple sentences from The One and Only Ivan. The groups had to find the subject (which we have found usually comes at the beginning of a sentence) and they also had to find the verb (which we have found usually comes right after the subject). After the groups found these parts of the sentence they copied them onto construction paper.
This is where the fun begins. We dance over to our Sentence Smack Down Arena and groups share their subject and predicate as they smack them onto the Sentence Smack Down mat. We are going to keep looking at simple sentences and how authors create them. I hope that by looking at these sentences the class will truly understand what makes a sentence. Then we can start to look at some more complex types of sentence. We are also going to keep looking at these two-word sentences that authors use. I am hoping we can figure out why authors use these two-word sentences. Then students can experiment using a two-word sentence in their writing (I have actually seen a few already show up today).
So I hope you ask the students about Sentence Smack Down. Please do not ask about my dancing it is not good. Tomorrow is a big day for us in Charlotte's Web...I have to go prepare myself. Hope you are having a great week.
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