Hi, my name is Teresa Kwant, and I have partnered with my friend Alisa at First Grade Fun Times. We have a sentence activity we guarantee your students will LOVE, and will be begging you to do each day. Understanding how a sentence is structured is crucial to student writing. When students understand the mechanics of sentences and how to read them, writing them won’t be as challenging. We call this activity Silly Rainbow Sentences, and you can grab the freebie here.
When making a silly sentence, students follow the rainbow poster provided and choose colored cards in the order outlined: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Each color represents a part of the sentence. Red is an article or pronoun, orange is an adjective, yellow is a noun, green is a verb, blue is a place or thing noun, and purple is the end punctuation.
Once students create a sentence, they then read it out loud. There are pictures provided on the cards to not only help with comprehension, but to help those struggling readers, read the sentences as well. Last, students will write their sentence. However, if you want students to focus on reading only, there are rainbow instruction posters that prompt students to only build and read sentences. Then, once they are comfortable reading sentences, they can begin writing them.
If thinking about printing this in colored ink is currently making your heart skip a beat, don’t despair! We have black and white options included too. You can print the cards on colored cardstock, or white cardstock and color the edges. For lasting use, we recommend laminating the cards.
These Silly Rainbow Sentences are such a fun, easy, and educational activity! They can be used in literacy centers, as a self start, as partner work (students build and read sentences to each other), for free time, with parent volunteers, or any other way you can imagine.
This activity is perfect for students just beginning to read and write. While it is ideal for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, students who are struggling readers in older grades will find this activity helpful too. I remember one year teaching sixth grade when a student from another country came to our school, and into our grade. He had never spoken English in his life. Imagine entering another country without any practice or experience with the language! That can be both scary and daunting. These sentence cards would have been perfect for him. The rainbow outline poster that guides students to order the sentences correctly, can help ESL students with sentence structure. The pictures provided make word recognition easier as well.
Wondering how to organize your Rainbow Silly Sentences? Check out what Lindsey Paulson did. She bought a bead organizer, and the compartments were customizable. This way, she was able to make the compartments the perfect size for the cards.
Check out this other AMAZING and colorful way to organize your Silly Sentences! This idea comes from Ms. Lapin. I LOVE how each card has a color coordinated box to match it. Easy storage, and an easy way to keep the cards neat when being used by the students.
Teachers have been RAVING about this product. Check out what some have said:
“This is not only a time saving purchase, but it is amazing in all ways! It is thoughtful and the thematic ease of it is great. My students at all grades love it! I use it with my older students who are struggling readers because they saw it and wanted to do it. It’s actually level appropriate for them so I am excited they like it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
“So great! My kiddos had a great time making silly sentences. Such great practice for writing, parts of speech, adding details, sentence fluency, and many other things!! Though I teach 1st, I could see higher level teachers using it as writing prompts! Thank you!”
“LOVE this resource for building fluency in beginning readers!”
“This is a fabulous tool for writing stations. My kids love some of the silly sentences they can create. I really love how every word has a great picture to match it. My kids hardly ever have to ask me what a word is and if they do it’s a great chance to build their vocabulary!”
Convinced you need Silly Rainbow Sentences? Remember, you can check out the freebie here or you can see the bundle here. You can also click on the covers below.
Guess what? These Rainbow Silly Sentences are also included in our monthly Grab and Go Language Arts Centers for First Grade! You can check out a freebie here and here. You can also click on the covers below.
Here is a link to the bundle (we also sell each month individually).
Love these! I used them in my middle school special education self-contained classroom last year. I used them as part of my morning work and the students had to read their sentences to me. I made these as sets and store them in plastic crayon boxes that are sold in the office supply section at Walmart. I numbered the boxes according to the set number and made a chart for which student got what set each day.