Fun Ways To Teach Parts of Speech

When children learn to speak, they immediately begin using the nine parts of speech without realizing it. Soon, children learn to identify each of the parts of speech. Learning does not have to be boring. Hands-on, active lessons are best for engaging the child and for memory retention. Below are five fun activities to teach the parts of speech.

The 9 Parts of Speech

Before participating in any of the activities, review the following parts of speech with your student.

Noun: a person, place or thing
Examples: cat, shoe, book, park, pillow

Verb: an action or a state of being
Examples: walk, jump, run, skip

Adjective: a word that modifies a noun, also called a describing word
Examples: kind, yellow, cold, first, many, pretty

Adverb: modifies a verb, often ends in “ly,” can also refer to where or when something happened
Examples: often, quickly, slowly, fearfully

Article: a type of word that precedes a noun, and helps define a noun
Examples:  a, an, the

Pronoun: replaces a name or proper noun
Examples: he, she, her, him, it, they, them

Preposition: shows the relationship between a noun and another word in the sentence
Examples: in, across, under, behind, from

Conjunction: connects two phrases together
Examples: and, or, but

Interjection: shows strong emotions or feelings, it is an exclamation. It is normally followed by an exclamation mark
Examples: Gosh, Wow, Aha

Parts of Speech Worksheet

If your child enjoys worksheets, let them try our printable Parts of Speech Match Up. If they enjoy it, you could cut off the bottom and copy it for use with other word lists, pages from books, posters, etc.

5 Ways to Teach Parts of Speech

1. Colorful Copywork Grammar: Have your child copy down a few sentences. Allow your child to either underline the different parts of speech in different colors or write the words of the sentence in different colors to represent the parts of speech.
2. Ping Pong Grammar: Write words with a black permanent marker on ping pong balls, then place paper bags or buckets on one side of the room. Mark each paper bag or bucket with one of the parts of speech. The child must stand across from the buckets or bags and toss the ping pong ball into the bag that correlates with the word written on the ball.
3. Parts of Speech Charades: Write down various words, phrases, or sentences using nouns, verbs, and adjectives on index cards. (example: “The angry man ran.”) Place the cards in a hat or bag. Draw a card without anyone seeing it and read it. Now, act out what the card says.
4. Parts of Speech Scavenger Hunt: Read a book together and challenge your child to pick out as many parts of speech as possible. You can mix things up by asking for verbs that end in “ing,” adjectives that are colors, or nouns that begin with the letter “s.”
5. Grammar Ball: Sit in a circle or across from one another if there are only two players. Name one of the parts of speech. The person with the ball says a word correlating with that part of speech. Then he rolls the ball to the next person, who says another word correlating with that part of speech. Once someone can no longer think of another word, it is time to start again with a new category.

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