Get ready to add some fitness, activity, and learning to the traditional game of hopscotch! This simple grammar exercise will get students excited to review parts of speech.
Hopscotch is a game whose origins date back to Roman times. Today, I'm suggesting you take advantage of the nice weather and move grammar class outside for a game a hopscotch to identify parts of speech. While the hopscotch rules may vary, all it takes is a hopscotch court, drawn with chalk on the sidewalk, and an object students can toss into any of the court’s spaces.
Materials:
Sidewalk chalk
Object to toss (stone, small rock, block, etc.)
To add a grammar spin to the game for grades 5–8, rather than numbering each space, use an original hopscotch pattern with nine squares and write in the parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb (you could make these active or passive), adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition, prepositional phrase, and interjection.
For grade levels 9–12, expand the hopscotch board to include more spaces, or revise the spaces with the following: irregular verb forms, verb tenses, plurals, reflexive pronouns, and dependent clauses.
Hopping through the boxes gives the students a chance to think of a correct word or phrase to give when he or she picks up the marker. To include writing, add a sentence space at the end of the board. Students can use the words they heard and write a sentence to match the grammar level being studied.
Get ready to add some fitness, activity, and learning to the traditional game of hopscotch! This simple grammar exercise is sure to help students identify parts of speech.