I have written lessons to accompany Woe Is I, Jr., a grammar handbook for kids. You can read my introductory comments here, the lesson for chapter 1 here, the lesson for chapter 2 here, and the lesson for chapter 3 here.

1.   Read chapter 4 and do what O’Conner suggests.

2.   Watch Schoolhouse Rock’s Verb: That’s What’s Happening.

3.   I found the following paragraph explaining how to make a sandwich.

My favorite sandwich is a spicy roast beef delight, and making it is such a tasty adventure. Simply retrieve two slices of fresh one-hundred percent whole wheat bread, and spread spicy brown deli mustard and mayonnaise to the inside of each slice. You will then add three thick slices of roast beef to the bottom slice of bread, as well as red onions, two slices of tomato, and a slice of green leaf lettuce to the top piece of bread. Now, place the two slices of bread together completing this scrumptious sandwich. Finally, cut the sandwich in half and serve with a handful of your favorite chips as you enjoy this masterpiece.

Remove or cross out all verbs in the paragraph. Do you agree with O’Conner that “without a verb, there’s nothing going on”?

4.   Write a paragraph about your favorite birthday moment.  Copy and paste it twice. Change the first one to present tense. Change the second one to future tense.

Some might call me an English geek, but I love to read grammar handbooks.  Last week I found one written just for kids: Woe Is I Jr.: The Younger Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English by Patricia T. O'Connor. (She also wrote Woe Is I for adults, which I haven't read.)

I'm a fan. How couldn't I be?  O'Connor explains grammatical principles all kids need, in a way they can understand. I can't wait to use it; I just need to find my first victim, I mean, student. Don't be surprised if I work the book into lessons here, but until that happens, I wanted to be sure you know about it.

One bummer: Unfortunately, you'll have to tolerate occasional mentions of poop and vomit, belches and boogers. Otherwise, O'Connor does well with writing conversationally, using examples and jokes which keep the content from becoming dense and dry.

* Go on a mad dash through the farm as fox chases mouse around, under, into, out... in Rick Walton's Around the House the Fox Chased the Mouse.

* After resting from the chase, work through the three learning activities included at the end of the book.

* Next, see if students can identify the prepositions and prepositional phrases in Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse by Lindsay Barrett George.

* Now students are ready to write an adventure of their own with prepositions. Give them a list.

* Submit adventures to the Student Showcase for others to enjoy!

1. Find a sofa and a little person, sit down with your arm around him or her, and read A Sick Day for Amos McGee, the 2011 Caldecott Medal winner. Such a sweet book with a precious main character.

2. If you want to use this book as a teaching tool, find another young one, if the first one is too young, who wants to go on a verb hunt. Philip C. Stead includes many worth noticing.

How many active verbs are there?
    (Some examples: clanged, swung, swapped, curled, worried, yawned)

If you simply want to delight in strong verbs, stop here.  If you want to search for different forms of verbs, continue.

How many helping verbs are there?
    (Some examples: would wind, could use, will share)
    Note: Don't miss all of the ones where the "would" is mentioned with the first verb         but implied with the verbs in the rest in the sentence.)

How many participles are there?
    (Some examples: scratching, keeping, knowing)

How many infinitives are there?
    (Two examples: to visit, to feel)

3. You've enjoyed the book; you've hunted for verbs; now join the Amos fan club. Isn't he adorable?!

How well can your students morph words from one part of speech to another?  Give them a word and ask them to identify its part of speech.  Then have them transform it into other parts of speech.

Let's take cheer, for example.  What part of speech is it?  It can be a noun or a verb.
Now ask your student to make it into an adjective: cheerful.
How about a participle: cheering.
An adverb?  cheerily.

Do this for any words that pop into your mind. Here are some that popped into mine.

Retire (v)   
noun: retirement  
adjective: retired

Exhaustion (n)   
verb: exhaust  
adjective: exhausting

Celebrate (v)    
noun: celebration
adjective: celebrative, celebratory

Excite (v)  
noun: excitement   
adjective: excited, excitable

Intense (adj)   
adverb: intensely
noun: intenseness

Another idea is to let your students think of the words, morphing them in as many ways as possible.  Then ask them to check a source, such as www. dictionary.reference.com to see what others there may be. 

In addition to becoming more savvy with parts of speech, they will see the versatility of words and build their reservoir of vocabulary!

I remember being introduced to Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" in junior high. With its nonsensical vocabulary that still manages to tell a story, it is sort of hard to forget.  Are your students familiar with it?

In addition to reading this poem aloud, enjoying it for its genius, use it to generate discussion about parts of speech.  What do you think about the words in the first stanza?  Brillig?  Slithy toves? Gyre and gimble?  Are there clues to show us the function of these and the other words in the poem? Look for them with your students and figure out as many as you can.

Learn or review parts of speech by writing structured poetry.

The Structure

Line 1 – one article (a, and, the) + one noun
Line 2 – one adjective + one conjunction + one adjective
Line 3 – one verb + one conjunction + one verb
Line 4 – one adverb
Line 5 – one noun that relates to the noun in the first line

An Example

An athlete *
Strong and sweaty
Pivots and shoots
Swiftly
Competitor

* This would be an excellent opportunity to talk about when to use "a" and when to use "an"  before a noun.

The Structure

Line 1: NOUN – whatever the poem is going to be about

Line 2: Three ADJECTIVES separated with commas that describe line 1.

Line 3: (3x) VERB ending in “–ing” and ADVERB describing what line 1 does, separated with commas.

Example: running quickly, jumping fluidly, racing urgently

Line 4: Three PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES, separated with commas

Line 5: INTERJECTION written with either an (!) or nothing if not as strong

Line 6: Free line with at least one PRONOUN in it

Line 7: Free line with at least one CONJUNCTION in it

Line 8: NOUN – write a synonym (word that means the same thing) for the noun in line 1.

If your student wants to write a synonym diamante, the nouns at the beginning and end of the poem should be synonyms.

The Synonym Structure

Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun

An Example

Mother
caring, kind
nursing , assisting, guiding
teacher, adviser, counselor, caregiver,
leading, molding, supervising
tender, understanding
friend

If your student wants to write an antonym poem, the nouns at the beginning and end of the poem should be opposites, all the words in regular font referring to the first noun, all of the words in italics referring to the second noun. (Of course, the difference in font is only for clarity; the final poem will not have italics.)

The Antonym Structure

Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun

An Example

square
symmetrical, conventional
shaping, measuring, balancing
boxes, rooms, clocks, halos
encircling, circumnavigating, enclosing
round, continuous
circle

For a change of pace, you may want to let your student use this online tool for writing the poem.

The Structure

a one-word title (a noun)
two adjectives
three -ing participles
a phrase
a synonym for your title (another noun)

****

An Example

dessert
cold, creamy
eating, giggling, licking
cone with three scoops
ice cream

A graphic organizer and sample poems, including the one above, can be found here.

Have you ever thought of the parts of speech with personalities?  How would you characterize a noun? an adjective? a verb?  M. L. Nesbitt personifies the parts of speech in her allegory Grammar-Land: Grammar in Fun for the Children of Schoolroom-shire:  "They are funny fellows, these nine Parts-of-Speech. You will find out by-and-by which you like best amongst them all.  There is rich Mr. Noun, and his useful friend Pronoun; little ragged Article, and talkative Adjective; busy Dr. Verb, and Adverb; perky Preposition, convenient Conjunction, and that tiresome Interjection, the oddest of them all" (3). 

These "funny fellows" are in a tizzy about which words belong to whom, so they must appear in court to present their case before Serjeant Parsing, Dr. Syntax, and Judge Grammar.

The author includes exercises at the end of each chapter. If you would like them in  worksheet/handout form to accompany your study of this book, you can find them here.

This text is also available as a free e-book here.

Allow your children to absorb the parts of speech with Ruth Heller's help.  In her World of Language series, she highlights a different part of speech in each book, explaining its function and using many examples to show it in use.

Here's how she begins Kites Sail High: "A VERB is really the most superb of any word you've ever heard.... Verbs tell you something's being done. Roses BLOOM and people RUN."

In this simple rhyming picture book, Heller introduces readers to complex concepts. Among them are linking verbs, helping verbs, tenses, irregular verbs, and passive and active voices. 

Other books in the series cover nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, collective nouns, interjections and conjunctions, and prepositions.

Teach the parts of speech by having your children do mad libs. Remember them? You fill in the blanks of a short story with the appropriate parts of speech. When the completed story is read, it is often very silly.