We all know that if you want to communicate well, you have to know your grammar.
SVA or Subject-Verb Agreement activities need to be written, read, and seen for the ideas to sink in. Here are some fantastic SVA activities that you can do with your class and will not be a bore for middle school students.
1. Subject Search Deals with Sentences
Give the students a worksheet with about 20 sentences, where they have to highlight or underline who, or what is the subject in each sentence. Have them make a sentence college, and with different colored pens, they can highlight the subject to put up on the grammar wall or an interactive subject-verb agreement poster.
Learn more: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
2. Time to Write and Rewrite
On the whiteboard, show the students sentences that DO NOT have a subject-verb agreement and ask them to rewrite the entire sentence with the correct verb to match the subject. A pair of students because two heads are better than one in this student notebook activity.
Learn more: Edmonds CC Writing Center and Smart Info Hub
3. Magazine Madness
Magazines might be a thing of the past but when it comes to grammar you don’t want to come in last! Bring in a collection of old magazines and have the students skim through them looking for an article that looks interesting then ask them to cut out the article and have them identify one singular SVA, one plural SVA, and one compound subject. For extra points, you can have them find more complex sentences.
Learn more: Pennington Publishing Blog
4. Everyone Loves Game Shows
Create your own online Jeopardy Game for students. Using Factile, you can easily create your own Jeopardy Game Show or you can recreate this on a bulletin board.
The categories would be “Singular Pronouns “ “Plural Verbs” and “Tricky ones” and have one student be the host and read out the definition or the true-false questions.
Take it one step further and have 8th graders create the questions for 6th grade! Make it as realistic as you want with Buzzers, fake money, and prizes.
They will have a blast!
Learn more: Play Factile
5. Subject-Verb Agreement Review Worksheets
Lots of whiteboard ideas and printable worksheets for Subject Verb Agreement list and a wonderful resource for students and teachers. Revision of rules, lots of hints, practice, and singular and plural checks. Quite Complete!
Learn more: Grammar Review Packet 6
6. Practice with Short Stories
It is a simple concept that you can Really Learn English in an entertaining way. Listen and read along to this great video. Great site to share with students as a Five -or 10-minute review activity
Learn more: Really Learn English
7. Learn Valuable Grammar Skills
One of the best ways to learn Grammar is to drill it in class and chant it in English classes. Check out this great site that shows you simple sentences that can be used for classroom chants, dictation, or fill-in-the-gap fun.
Learn more: English Grammar
8. It’s Quiz time for SVA English Grammar
100 questions to test your middle schoolers' 6th to 8th-grade students. They just need to read, think and choose what is the best option. Fun game for passive students.
Learn more: Success CDs
9. The Writing Mini-lesson Plan
With this lesson plan and these activities, you will be able to teach the objectives of identifying the subject and verb of a sentence, revising the rules of the subject-verb agreement, and practicing with lots of student worksheets using a range of skills.
Learn more: The Writing Center
10. What’s in the Hat?
This is a fun interactive game to play in class. Help students to make their own sentences then cut out all the subjects and predicates from each sentence with the teacher’s help. You can also use the link below to get complete sentence builder cards.
Using a black top hat put all the papers or cards in the hat and have each student draw a paper or card.
Learn more: Banter Speech
11. Subject Verb Agreement Color a Rainbow
Colored markers are always fun to use when highlighting grammar. Subjects are read and predicates are blue. Use can tell them to choose another color of choice for nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Using multi-sensory in this activity is hands-on and makes SVA enjoyable to learn.
Learn more: English Syntax Highlighter
12. Mad Libs
Mad Libs is a classic and there are many printable worksheets of Mad Libs that can be used to teach SVA in a hysterical way. Middle schoolers of all ages will love this activity to do in small groups and pairs. Elementary students love Mad-Libs SVA for homework they will do it right away.
Learn more: Mad Libs
13. Hot Potato Fun
Pass the potato or another object around the circle and when the music goes off the student has to look at the flashcards and answer the SVA questions as fast as possible. Check out activity 2 for some SVA fun!
Learn more: ESL Speaking
14. Guess Which One is Right
The SVA can be difficult to understand. Through games and quizzes, students can get into teams or small groups and come up with 5 correct sentences and 5 incorrect. Then they can share their sentences with the other team and the first one to rewrite the incorrect answers wins. This quick activity takes minutes of class time and it's fun.
Learn more: Quizizz
15. SVA Whiteboard Wonders
Using mini-whiteboards in the classroom can inspire children and pre-teens to write, correct and rewrite in a fun way. All students stand up to play this game. the teacher writes or displays a sentence for the entire class to see. Students write the verb that matches the subject quickly if they are correct, they stay standing, if they are incorrect they must sit down. Until you have only the last 5 students. Good fast fun!
Learn more: The Classroom
16. Dino Fun
Back to the era of the Dinosaurs! This fun ESL online game that you can use the digital whiteboard is perfect for 6th graders. It's a nice 5-minute break in class.
Playing these SVA games in class takes the BORE out of learning grammar. Students can even invent their own paper version of SVA versus the Dinosaurs.
Learn more: ESL Games Plus
17. Cootie Catches SVA
We all love playing with paper cootie catchers and kids can make their own or you can download them off this site. It is a great interactive hand-on way for them to have fun while learning. Good idea for busy teachers.
Learn more: Tes
18. Song Time
It's time to get the groove on with school house rock and songs that reinforce grammar rules.
If you sing it, dance to it and have a little fun while you are learning grammar. 11 Catchy songs that teach grammar.
Learn more: Fluent U
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