Friday, February 27, 2009

SUBJECT/PREDICATE


I found teaching subject and predicate was a tough concepts for students to understand, so I came up with this teaching chart/idea. Subject is "who or what" (noun) the sentence is about. Predicate is the "did what" (action).  My team teacher did something similar.  She made a packet for each student in her class.  It can be any size.  For third graders it was an 9" x 5" cardstock with 2 stacks of white paper about 4" square attached.  The students wrote a subject on each page on the stack at the left and a predicate on each paper of the stack on the right.  Then they could make silly sentences by flipping through the stacks.  Examples:
SUBJECT:                         PREDICATE:
The boy                              ran through the store singing silly songs.
A fat cat                             rummaged through the garbage in the alley.
The silly clown                    gazed at the lightening in the sky.

You will notice that on the subject side, the beginning is capitalized and on the predicate side the ending has punctuation.
Encourage students to be creative with both the subjects and predicates.
Then either the students can read the sentences they can make to a partner or write them.
You can have as many 4" squares you think your students need to get the idea.

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