Color-Coded Sentence Diagrams

Grammar rules are a lot more fun to learn when bright colors, map-making, and cooperative games are part of the learning experience!

• 1.

  Dive into Ruth Heller’s parts of speech books. Start with Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns and Kites Sail High, which is about verbs.

• 2.

  On dry-erase boards, write short, two-word sentences, using only a noun and a verb, with Crayola Dry-Erase Markers. Add a simple word, such as a or the to the beginning of the sentence to make a three-word sentence. Match nouns and verbs to make silly simple sentences, such as The ball bakes or A man skips.

• 3.

  After exploring Heller's Mine, All Mine: A Book About Pronouns, substitute pronouns such as he, she, it, or they, for nouns. Add more verbs to make new sentences.

• 4.

  A sentence diagram is like a map. To make a simple diagram, draw a horizontal line. Divide it with a vertical line down the middle. Nouns and pronouns are placed left of the vertical line, verbs on the right. Use your dry-erase markers to diagram your sentences. Color code nouns and verbs, perhaps with black and red.

• 5.

  Continue to read Ruth Heller books. Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: A Book About Adjectives and Many Luscious Lollipops introduce many fun words used to describe nouns. To add adjectives to a sentence diagram, draw diagonal lines under the noun. Try a green marke

• 6.

  Learn more about verbs by reading Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs. Use a blue marker to add adverbs written on diagonal lines under the verbs on your sentence diagram. Fill your board with sentences and then erase to try new ones.

• 7.

  Learn all about prepositions in Behind the Mask. Where would you put a preposition in a sentence diagram? Find out!

• 8.

  As your diagramming skills improve, work in small groups to diagram more complicated sentences. Take turns passing a dry-erase board around to group members. Each person places a word in the correct position on the diagram.

Benefits

• Students read Ruth Heller's books and learn to identify various parts of speech.
• Students label words according to the parts of speech and use the words to form simple and then more complex sentences.
• Students analyze sentences and diagram (map) the words according to their parts of speech.

Adaptations

• Enjoy Heller's Fantastic! Wow! and Unreal! A Book About Interjections and Conjunctions. Discover interjections from long ago and surprise friends with exclamations of "Alas!" "Alack!" or "Egad!" Use bright colors and bold, patterned letters to create an i
• List your favorite nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in your writing folder. When writing, make your stories extraordinary by adding some of these words. Write a better story by turning an ordinary sentence, such as The dog walked down the street into
• Assessment: Provide a series of mixed-up sentences for students to first unscramble, then diagram.