What's a fun grammar exercise for kids?

I learned everything I know about grammar from School House Rock!

My memories from grade school was that I had a really good foundation in grammar and useage; it took four years. In sixth grade we arrived at the subjunctive; English had a period a day and was straightforward - the foundation for everything.

The basic requirement is accurate info and a kind and patient teacher, who doesn't get irritated. Learning anything can be fun w. the right attitude, but it is really like how you get to Carnegie Hall.

We even parsed sentences-probably a lost art, but I still can spot a dangling participle from 100 paces. How old are the kids you are teaching? Good for you.

Great idea BigFish! Growing up, I learned grammar basics MUCH more quickly from School House Rock than I ever could have from class alone. I still have those songs in my head. Wesley837, if you could get your hands on those DVDs, and the kids could sing along, that would be really fun and they'd learn it quickly.

madlibs.

do some madlibs and then have them write their own.

Hand out a list of colorful words and clauses. Write a word to start out a story. Have the first kid tell everyone what type of word or clause it is. The next kid gets to choose what type of word or clause should come next. The next kid picks a word or clause of that type from the list, which is added after the first word. Next kid picks the type of word or clause, next kid picks that type from the list, etc.

Call me dorky, but I loved drawing those sentence diagrams. Using the ruler, having to find a spot for every last word (in some randomly-chosen sentence -- that was when it got fairly complicated/advanced). That was in middle school. Elementary school..... I don't remember but I feel like the best thing was just reading interesting books and hearing good, eloquent, diverse, grammatically-correct speech!

well, and Madlibs :)

How about having an adult say several things, and the game is for them to catch when the adult says something the wrong way, and then to try to explain what’s wrong about it. So just prepare examples of saying it right and wrong, and let them listen for what’s wrong.

It just occurred to me it’d be a way to make it fun for kids and turn the tables on them trying to get something right and being told they’re wrong if they don’t do it right.

You could tape a sentence or two or three.
Play the tape for them (Great for listening skills}
Have them write the sentence ( spelling, etc)
Then have them id the verb subject or what ever)