Silly Sentences - for sight words practice, grammar and sentence structure

"Silly Sentences" are lots of fun for children who are beginning to read words. You can make your own word cards from cut up cereal boxes etc. and include words that your child can read easily, including family names, with a few extra words to help make a sentence.

Your child can help to decide which words are needed to make a short sentence. Don't forget a card with a full stop (or exclamation mark, or, if necessary, a question mark) to put at the end. You can also discuss the need for a capital letter at the start of the sentence. This is an excellent way to introduce your child to basic essential punctuation, and a fun way to practice grammar and sight vocabulary.

Encourage your child to swap the word cards around to make different sentences, and to check if they 'sound right' (encouraging awareness of sentence structure) and if they make sense. Add in extra cards as needed and put in some 'silly' words to make it more fun.

This game can be played over and over, adding in more cards as you like, and extending your child's sight vocabulary as you go!

You can keep the cards in a little zip-lock bag, and you can write the words in different colours if you wish. You may want to write verbs and adjectives in a different colour, to help your child to develop awareness of the function of different kinds of words.

Here is a sheet of words you can print off onto light card to start off with:

Click on the picture to open a .pdf document which you can print. This printable is free for educational/private use. You are welcome to pin this but not to distribute the file directly ;)