Reading: Ages 4-6

Scrambled Sentences

 

            Today's Snack: Mmmm . . . scrambled eggs with a little milk and shredded cheese! Add a piece of buttered toast, and a small glass of orange juice. Breakfast time is any time of the day!

 

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Supplies:

Index cards | Marker pen

 

 

It's amazing how children naturally pick up the grammar of their home language. By "grammar," we mean the order - the rules - how words come together into meaningful sentences.

 

You can test this out with preschool and kindergarten-age children with this simple game.

 

First, think of several short sentences with five or six words each. Prepare enough so that every child in your class will have a chance at least once to interact with a word. If you have 20 children in your group, you will need four sentences of five words each, at the least.

 

Examples:

 

The brown dog sat on the floor.

 

He liked to play baseball.

 

What is in the sack?

 

Now write each individual word of each of those sentences on a different index card. Mix them up so that they are out of order. Keep each set of index cards together with a rubber band or paper clip.

 

You can include the capital letters, and the closing punctuation marks, with the words they should go with, as clues.

 

Now have the children sit around you on the floor. Tell them that sentences are written in a special order that gives each sentence a clear meaning. There are clues to tell you where a word should go, in the order of each sentence. The first word of a sentence is always capitalized, for example. And the last word has a period or other closing punctuation mark after it.

 

Pick up one set of index cards. Read the words aloud, even though they will not be in order of the sentence. Now select one child to hold each of the cards.

 

Have these volunteers line up in the order that the words were read, holding their cards out in front of them so everyone can see.

 

Now say, "UNSCRAMBLE!" and the children must work together as a team to figure out which word comes first, which comes last, and in what order the rest go, in between, so that they form an intelligible, complete sentence with the words they've been given. When they are ready, they should stand in line in a new order, holding their cards in front of themselves, for the other children and you to read aloud together.

 

If they get stumped, the other children can call out suggestions, and you can be the final reference guide. But let each group try to place the words in order themselves, and you may be surprised how easily and naturally they can do it.

 

Once that group has completed the task, they can sit down, and you can give the cards for the next sentence to a fresh group of volunteers.