Sentence Stretchers: A Writing Tool

What You Need:

• paper
• black marker
• red marker
• M&M’s or Skittles

What You Do:

1. Begin by “sweetening” the project by placing a bowl of M&M’s or Skittles on the table. Explain to your fifth grader that they can win pieces of candy by stretching simple sentences. On a piece of paper, write “The boy ran” (with "The boy" in black and "ran" in red). Explain to your child that they can turn simple sentences into longer, fifth grade sentences by following an easy formula. The black words in the sentence tell the subject (noun part) and the red words tell the predicate (verb part). To stretch the sentence (and win candy!), add a word to each part by using this chart.

   Adjectives:                                                  Adverbs:

   What kind?                                                 Where?

   Which one?                                                When?

   How many?                                                 How?

                                                                   How much?

                                                                   How long?

2. Provide some example sentences to get your writer moving along with their sentence stretching. Then, see if you can piece the sentences together to create a story, whether it's silly or serious.