Grammar can be one of the most boring and frustrating subjects to teach and learn. As I was sitting last year thinking about how I was going to teach the parts of speech, I started thinking about what types of personalities these parts of speech would have. I love using personification and imagination to make learning more engaging and fun. I also want my students moving, laughing, and comprehending at a deep level. This led to me writing my first grammar skit. This skit included 4 parts of speech that are sometimes difficult to grasp: preposition, conjunction, pronoun, and interjection. As I was writing this skit and these parts of speech were coming to life, it made me laugh out loud. I was picturing my students moving around the room giving personalities to these concepts, and it made my teacher heart happy.
Preposition is constantly in a new location throughout the skit.
“I am by the door”
“I am under the table”
“I am on a chair”
Several times during the skit, Interjection interjects when the narrators are talking.
“Yikes!”
“Yay! That’s so much better!”
“Wahoo!”
Pronoun comes to the scene and is a very mysterious character. He/she keeps referring to things as it, him, her, them…etc., but won’t ever say the name of the nouns. When asked why he/she is so mysterious, Pronoun answers by saying, “I am a pro at keeping the nouns’ exact identities a secret.” Get it? Pro-noun. 🙂
One of the narrators struggles to make his sentences flow together, and Conjunction comes to save the day. By repeating what the narrator just said but with conjunctions, the audience sees how helpful conjunctions can be.
This whole skit is color coded with the name of the part of speech matching every time that specific part of speech is used. The students also wear matching headbands with the name of their characters in the same colors that are seen in the skit. Now the students are experiencing visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning in one activity.
This skit brought my students so much joy over the last two years, so I decided to share it with other teachers online through teacherspayteachers. It was such a hit with other teachers that I got lots of requests for more grammar skits. Since then, I have written 3 more. One more with the other 4 parts of speech, and two that cover figurative language pieces. All of these skits are top sellers, with constant positive feedback flowing in. Teachers have shared videos and pictures of their students laughing while doing these skits, and commented on how successful they are at teaching their students these concepts. Here is some of the written feedback I’ve recieved about these skits:
“My students LOVED doing this skit! We practiced a few times this week and now they are calling out parts of speech when they hear it (a teacher’s dream!). I’m going to purchase the counterpart to this one. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this product!!” –Kathryn P.
“WOW! My students embraced this skit and performed it throughout the school with gusto! My students all know what figurative language is and their knowledge is now seen throughout their writing – YAHOO!” – Amy O.
“This product here made me a rock star teacher!! My kids loved it and so did I. Thank you so much for such an engaging way to teach figurative language.” –Hamidah K.
You can find all of these skits in my teacherspayteachers store. Here are the direct links to each one:
or you can get them in bundles (also found in my store).
Enjoy!
Teach Like You Mean It 