Teaching subject-verb agreement can be a challenging yet essential part of middle school education. The key is to make learning enjoyable and engaging through interactive and creative activities. Here are 18 subject-verb agreement activities that you can incorporate into your middle school classroom to help students grasp this important concept.
1. Sentence Unscramble: Provide students with scrambled sentences, focusing on proper subject-verb agreement. Have them rearrange the words to create grammatically correct sentences.
2. Fill-in-the-blank: Create worksheets with incomplete sentences where the correct verb form must be selected, emphasizing subject-verb agreement rules.
3. Error Hunt: Ask students to identify incorrect subject-verb agreements in pre-written paragraphs, and explain why they are incorrect.
4. Sentence Rewriting: Provide sentences with incorrect subject-verb agreements and have students rewrite them correctly.
5. Memory Game: Design a memory game using cards with subjects on one set and corresponding verbs on another set. Students must match the cards with the correct subject-verb agreement.
6. Bingo: Create a bingo game using various subjects and verbs that require proper agreement for a fun whole-class activity.
7. Group Storytelling: Divide students into groups of three or four and have them create a story using proper subject-verb agreements, each taking turns adding sentences.
8. Verb Tense Basketball: Set up a basketball hoop in the classroom and have students throw a ball while stating the correct verb form for the given subject, focusing on subject-verb agreement.
9. Board Race: Divide your class into two teams, where each student has to run to the board, write a sentence using proper subject-verb agreement, and run back so the next team member can repeat the process.
10. Collaborative Matching Worksheet: Have pairs or small groups of students work together to match subjects with their appropriate verb forms based on subject-verb agreement rules.
11. Plural or Singular?: Challenge students to identify whether the given noun is plural or singular and then choose the correct verb form accordingly.
12. Correct-or-Incorrect: Provide a list of sentences with varying subject-verb agreement accuracy, and have students determine whether they are correct or incorrect.
13. Concentric Circles: Set up two concentric circles of students who discuss subject-verb agreement rules while rotating periodically, ensuring constant partner changes and increased discussion.
14. Agreement Charades: Have students act out scenes representing correct or incorrect subject-verb agreements while their classmates must guess if the acted scene portrays proper grammar usage.
15. Speed Quizzing: Quiz students on different subject-verb agreement rules under a time constraint to help increase focus and retention.
16. Subject-Verb Agreement Mad Libs: Create Mad Libs-style stories where students must fill in the blanks with appropriate verbs reflecting proper subject-verb agreement.
17. Verb Relay Race: Organize a relay race where students must form sentences with accurate subject-verb agreements before passing the baton to their team members.
18. Peer Editing: Encourage students to exchange their written work, checking each other’s papers for subject-verb agreement errors and suggesting corrections.
Through these engaging activities, middle school students can develop a stronger foundation in subject-verb agreements, helping to improve their overall grammar skills and strengthen their writing abilities.
