Grammar Game

The Purpose of the Grammar Game:
is to introduce children to the parts of speech within the context of sentences, in a painless (and even fun) way; and to familiarise them with the vocabulary used in English grammar, before they ever commence a formal course.

The Object of the Game:
is for players to make up sentences using a word or phrase from each of six categories. The categories are:

1. First adjective. (This includes pronouns, articles, numerals, etc. which are here performing an adjectival function).
2. Second adjective
3. Noun
4. Verb
5. Adverb
6. Preposition. (In this case a prepositional phrase has been used, and the preposition itself has been underlined. Where more than one preposition appears in the phrase, only the first has been underlined.)

Requirements:
Game cards (see below)

Players:
As many or as few as you like. Non-readers can play if somebody helps them read the words and sentences.

How to play: Basic game

1. Shuffle all the cards together and place them in a pile face down on the table. Players take it in turns to take the top card either from that pile, or from the “discard” pile to be started next to it.
2. As each player takes a card, he places it face up on the table in front of him. A player may not keep more than one card in a category – he must decide which he wishes to keep, and place the other face up on the discard pile. The one exception to this rule is that if a player has a card, he may keep that together with another one card bearing the same number.
3. A player may only use one card in the basic game, and he must be able to supply an appropriate word or phrase where it is used.
4. Sentences must make sense grammatically, even though their meaning may be utter nonsense – e.g. Double negatives are not permitted; some adverbs sound better placed before the verb rather than after.
5. Depending on the amount of time available, either the first person to complete a sentence wins, or the game continues until everyone has completed a sentence.
6. All sentences are then read aloud.

Alternative version:

1. Play as above, but all cards remain face down on the table, and each time a player picks up a new card, he must place any “old” card he may have in that category on the discard pile.
2. As each player completes a sentence for the first time, he turns his cards over, reads the sentence out to the other players, then turns the cards back down and continues to play.
3. Play continues until all players have completed a sentence. At the end of their game all players read out their sentences.
4. If a player finds he has a double negative in his sentence, he should either explain what the sentence really means, or change it so it only contains one negative.
5. In this version of the game a player is permitted to use two or more cards in a sentence, but he must supply appropriate words or phrases. If preferred, the cards may be removed to make things simpler for younger players.

Variations:
After completing their sentences, players may be asked to:

1. Apply grammar learned from their English lessons.
2. Change their sentence from plural to singular.
3. Change the tense of their sentence.
4. Change pronouns to nouns, or nouns to pronouns.
5. Change adjectives to adverbs and vice versa (where possible).
6. Look up any unfamiliar words in a dictionary.
7. Provide synonyms for at least two of the words in their sentence.
8. State (without looking) the part of speech of any one of the words in their sentence.
9. Add a second part to their sentence, and join the parts with a conjunction (e.g. and, but, however, because, therefore, although, so…)
10. Give cause and effect – Why did it happen, and what was the result?

Note:
Children are not necessarily expected to understand what pronouns or tenses are, or any other technical term used in this game: the terms can be introduced casually.

Links to Game Cards:
We suggest printing these cards on card-stock and cutting them out along the dotted lines. Either use a different colour for each category, or write the number of the category on the reverse of the card. (If the cards do not print properly from the web page, you may prefer to copy them into a Word document and print from that).

1. First adjective
2. Second adjective
3. Noun
4. Verb
5. Adverb
6. Preposition.