Those little marks at the end of sentences, between words and near letters can really be confusing. These resources are great for teaching kids about punctuation. Books, games, worksheets and hands on activities make learning about punctuation less daunting. Try these activities to teach kids about punctuation the easy way.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference! by Lynne Truss is a book that shows kids why commas are important. For instance, the book has two identical sentences right next to each other. The only difference is the punctuation is different. Fun pictures help illustrate the differences. Other similar books by the same author include The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage without Apostrophes! and Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, every punctuation mark counts! All of these books can be found on amazon.com or check your local library.
A great way for daily punctuation practice is during reading groups. Using sentence strips write out sentences that are missing punctuation. Put the sentence strips in a pocket chart. Then, give students punctuation marks on cut up pieces up sentence strips. At the beginning or end of your reading group, have students correctly punctuate the sentences.
There are several games concerning punctuation at gamequarium.com. One is called Sentence Clubhouse. The game asks kids to pick between statement, question, command and exclamation. Each choice features a different type of structure, door, window or roof. A sentence is then given and students need to punctuate and capitalize in the proper place. If they are correct, their structure for their clubhouse is dropped into place. In the end, they have constructed an entire playhouse. There's also power proofreading, wall of words and several basic punctuation exercises. Many of these games require installation of flash or shockwave player.
These PDF worksheets from superteacherworksheets.com have basic practice sheets on end punctuation. In addition, there are practice sheets for abbreviations, commas, writing dates and more. There are also cut and paste activities that help kids distinguish between statements and questions.
One great reproducible book for the classroom is Read & Practice Mini-Books: Grammar & Punctuation: 10 Interactive Mini-Books That Help Students Build Grammar and Punctuation Skills-Independently! Along with grammar, this book has reproducible stories that teach kids about commas, quotation marks and contractions through fun stories. Another fun reproducible book is Grammar Games & Activities That Boost Writing Skills: Dozens of Grammar Manipulatives, Games, and Activities to Teach and Parts of Speech, Capitalization, Punctuation, and More. This book has fun games and activities like Wheel of Quotations and Quotation Queen that both teach about proper use of quotation marks. There's also Pop-Up Punctuation, and Comma Cuties. Both of these can be purchased at scholastic.com.
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