Kindergarten Grammar Alive

Make Kindergarten grammar meaningful, developmentally-appropriate, and fun with this yearlong pack of materials!

I know you might be thinking, "Whaaat?! Grammar in Kindergarten?!" I know! But if you teach your students how to begin a sentence with a capital letter...how to name ending punctuation marks...how to understand and use preposition words...then you're teaching grammar! And you want to set your students on a path to becoming strong writers, even if they start the school year not even knowing their letters. So keep on reading!

Grammar Alive will help you:

• Teach basic print concepts, punctuation, capitalization, and oral grammar skills to your Kindergarten students
• Address often-overlooked (but important!!) skills that lay the foundation for students to become strong writers
• Get your students excited about learning with fun, Kindergarten-appropriate materials
• Save time in your literacy block with activities you can integrate into your existing reading and writing lessons
• Reduce your planning time

Each week of materials includes:

• Lesson plans that follow the gradual release of responsibility 
• Activities to reinforce the target skill
• Ideas for integrating grammar instruction into your existing reading and writing lessons
• An “I can” poster for the weekly skill

You also get:

• Video directions that walk you through the materials (to make getting started easy!)
• Rubrics to help you track students’ progress

This product is for you if you:

• Want to lay a strong foundation for your students as they develop basic speaking and writing skills
• Need ideas and fun materials to keep your students engaged all year long
• Don’t have a lot of extra time in your schedule and want quick activities
• Value best practices in literacy instruction AND want to use developmentally appropriate strategies

 This product is not for you if you:

• Are looking for lots of worksheets or sentence-fixing activities

FAQs

Is this really appropriate for *Kindergarten”?! My students don’t know their letters at the beginning of the year.

Yes! I consider grammar to include all the skills that help children learn to speak and write using standard English. In Kindergarten, we start with understanding what a letter is, what a word is, what a sentence is, etc. If you take a look at p. 4 of the free week of plans, you’ll see that we start with the very basics.

How long do these activities take?

Most activities can be completed in 10 minutes, or occasionally 15 minutes.

Will I need to teach a grammar lesson every day?

Nope! I don’t teach a grammar lesson every day in Kindergarten, and the materials help you integrate these concepts into your existing reading and writing lessons.

Can these materials be used as centers, independent work, or D5 activities?

Some of them, yes! Each week has whole class lessons and some follow-up activities. Some of the follow-up activities can serve as independent work, as long as you first model how to do them.

Can I start this program in the middle of the school year?

Definitely! Look over the list of topics (p. 4, here), and eliminate any skills you’ve already taught. Then, start with whatever week seems most relevant to your students.

What skills or topics are covered?

The following skills are covered (to see the order of skills covered, please look at p. 4 of this document:

• Concept of a letter
• Concept of a capital and lowercase letter
• Concept of a word
• Concept of spoken sentences and printed sentences
• Reading and writing left-to-right, top-to-bottom (directionality of print)
• Capitalizing sentences
• Capitalizing the word “I”
• Ending sentences with periods
• Understanding and using verbs orally
• Basics of verb shades of meaning
• Understanding and using prepositions
• Understanding and using adjectives orally
• Asking questions using question words
• Using question marks
• Using exclamation points
• Writing in complete sentences
• Understanding and using plural nouns orally
• Present and past tense verbs
• Understanding and using pronouns orally

Plenty of spiral review is built in!

Can I teach the skills out of order?

Absolutely! Keep in mind that the earlier weeks will include simpler skills, but it’s very easy to use the weeks out of order.

How long will these materials last?

These materials should last just about all year. I recommend starting about a month into the school year. A total of 30 weeks of lessons and activities are included.

Can I purchase just part of this resource?

This pack can only be purchased in full. However, you’re welcome to download a full week of lesson plans HERE.

Will it be difficult or expensive to print these materials?

No! The main PDFs have only black and white materials. You can print them as-is. There is an optional, separate PDF with color materials for the posters and some of the games.

If you have any other questions, please contact Alison at Alison@LearningAtThePrimaryPond.com. Don’t forget to view the preview images and grab your free week of plans HERE!