The Ultimate Guide to Fun Grammar Lessons With Your Students

Grammar can be a daunting subject both for teachers and students. Is teaching grammar in a fun way an impossible task? Absolutely not! There are a variety of ways to engage students and make grammar lessons fun. It is one of the few subjects taught in school that individuals will apply every day for the rest of their lives.

A priority must be placed in teaching both spoken and written grammar skills in a way that students will retain the knowledge. Proper grammar can mean the difference between students getting accepted to the college of their choice, landing the job of their dreams, or being able to effectively communicate with others. No pressure, but it’s pretty important for students to grasp! Here are some ideas to facilitate making grammar lessons fun!

1. Use Games

Kids love playing games. Games make learning anything more fun. They add some friendly competition and get students involved in the learning process.

One of my favorite games is sentence structure races! This is a tactile learning strategy utilizing giant sentence pieces. Divide the class into groups, provide them with various components of a sentence, and allow them to piece the sentence together while racing against the other teams in the class. The first team to ten wins!

Incorporate Word Work Games with students when they are working in small groups. Working in groups stimulates the constructive thought and learning process. Students are motivated by each other and may learn better by working with peers.

Another huge hit that students enjoy playing during grammar lessons is Baseball! Divide the class into two teams. Ask a grammar question to the team member who is up to bat. If they do not answer the question correctly, the team receives an out. Three outs signify when it is the next team’s turn. When a question is answered correctly, the student moves a base. Before asking each question, the student up to bat may choose whether he or she is asked a single, double, triple, or home run question. The more bases the student moves, the more difficult the question.

2. Apply an Interactive Approach

Whether you are teaching in-person, online, or hybrid, get your students moving! By incorporating movement into your lessons, the brain will be more activated and, therefore, students will retain further information! For example, have students come up to the whiteboard to choose correct grammatical sequences.  

Another interactive approach is to put the skill to use in writing and acting! Divide the class into groups and assign them to write a play they will act out for the class. I still remember writing a play in 4^th grade and how fun it was to act out for the teacher and class. This process not only utilizes writing, grammar, and teamwork skills, but it also cultivates the creative thinking process. In addition, this can be done in breakout rooms if teaching virtually!

Incorporating movement into your lessons does not have to be difficult. Have students stand up & hop, jog, or skip to pick a piece of paper from a bucket and take turns reading each sentence out loud for the class. The class will vote for which ones are grammatically correct.

3. Play Music

Isn’t it crazy how students can remember every lyric to today’s top hit, but have difficulty recalling what a preposition is?! That’s where music comes into play! Playing background music and actually incorporating music into your lessons is two completely different things.

Does anyone remember Schoolhouse Rock? I can still recite most of the words to Conjunction Junction! Catchy songs have a way of sticking with you. As corny as they may be, recalling information throughout your grammar lessons is the ultimate goal.

Divide the class into groups to write a song together. It can be about your weekly spelling words, the grammar skill you are focusing on, or maybe even the parts of speech! Have each group perform in front of the class, and the class will vote on the best performance. One resource I highly recommend to incorporate music and songs into your grammar lessons is Flocabulary.com!

4. Read, Read, Read!

One last tip is to read chapter books daily! There are plenty of online resources that are available where students can listen to the audio version, as well. The plot, sequence, and subject matter of the chapter book will pique students’ interest and maintain their attention over a period of time while providing examples of proper grammar use. Check the list to receive some additional ideas of some of my Favorite 5th Grade Books to Read Aloud with your students!

Regardless of the fun activities in which students are engaged to learn any skill, repetition and consistency are key in students walking away from a classroom setting with improved grammatical skills. 

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