I’m not a huge proponent of having students identify each word in a sentence by part of speech. Maybe it’s some sort of leftover fear or revolution from my days in ELA class when teachers made me diagram sentences, but it is extremely rare I ask students to do anything remotely similar. I just don’t see the value in it. That said, I do know it is important to generally understand what each part of speech is and does. I also believe it is essential to be able to identify a word’s part of speech, at least at some times. Therefore, I have a quick reference handout (free download below the picture) and a few activities that ask students to identify the parts of speech of various words. I’ve tried to make them as fun as possible, and my students generally respond positively to them. This particular activity, Parts of Speech Match Up Cards, is the least active one I have, but it is the one I use most often with my older learners.
Match Up Boards
Match Up Boards are an invention of my father’s. I give the complete backstory in the post, Match Up Boards, from May of 2022. The important things to know now are that they are very easy to build, and the instructions for doing so can be downloaded from below the picture.
You create the cards (or buy some pre-made ones), and students slide them into the boards and use rubber bands to match the two sides; they then remove and reinsert the center card to check their answers.
Parts of Speech Match Up Cards
If you don’t feel like making your own cards, you can get the set of four cards I use with my students. If you want to create your own, here’s what I included on my cards:
Card One
Like all the cards, this one has eight parts of speech (noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, conjunction, article, preposition) listed on the left side. The right side has definitions for the parts of speech. Students use rubber bands to match the terms to the definitions.
Cards Two-Four
These three cards also have eight parts of speech listed on the left side. The right side is what is different. Each card has a different set of eight words, one for each of the eight parts of speech. Students use rubber bands to match the part of speech to the example word. The included words are:
Card Two
- the
- at
- quickly
- blue
- she
- house
- but
- run
Card Three
- is
- girl
- and
- slowly
- up
- he
- tall
- an
Card Four
- a
- big
- so
- through
- talk
- carefully
- dog
- they
Conclusion
As I mentioned in the beginning, Parts of Speech Match Up Cards is my least active activity. In the future, I’ll share posts about some of the more active games and activities we use, such as Clip It Or Pass It, Parts of Speech Land, and Parts of Speech Pisces. Until next time, happy teaching, everyone!
The Gaming Grammarian 