Sentence Structure Teaching Resources
Teach students the elements of sentence structure this school year with printable worksheets, sentence-building activities, sorting games and more elementary school teaching resources designed to help extend your students' understanding of how to write clear and concise sentences that follow the rules of English grammar.
This extensive collection of teaching resources has been created by teachers for teachers like you. Aligned to the Common Core curriculum, the ELA collection includes editable worksheets and teaching presentations and more to save elementary teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this sentence collection has been carefully reviewed and curated by our team. That means it's ready to use in the classroom! You'll even find editable resources, plus differentiated options.
New to teaching about sentence structure, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team!
English Sentence Structure Explained
From subjects to predicates, objects to clauses, the English language is packed with rules specific to sentence structure that students need to learn on the way to becoming proficient writers.
Ready to break down how to build a sentence in English and look at some examples? Let's go!
Subject
The subject of a sentence is the noun or pronoun that performs the action or is described in the sentence.
For example, in the sentence "Jaquan did his homework," Jaquan is the subject.
Predicate
The predicate of a sentence expresses the action or state of being in a sentence.
Let's go back to the sentence "Jaquan did his homework." In this case, did is the predicate.
Object
The object of a sentence is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb.
For example, "homework" would be the object in "Jaquan did his homework."
Complement
The complement of a sentence is a word or phrase that completes the meaning of a sentence.
The complement can be a direct object, indirect object, or subject complement.
For example: "a doctor" in "She became a doctor."
Modifier
A modifier in a sentence provides additional information about a word or phrase in the sentence. It can be an adjective or an adverb. Example: "kind" in "She was a kind teacher."
What Are Clauses?
Clauses are groups of words containing a subject and a verb. They're important to understand when learning sentence structure. After all, one kind of clause is a sentence!
There are two main types of clauses:
- Independent Clause — An independent clause can stand alone as a complete sentence because it expresses a complete thought. For example: "I did all of my homework."
- Dependent Clause — A dependent clause cannot stand alone as a sentence because it does not express a complete thought. It relies on an independent clause to make sense. Example: "When I went to the store," (Dependent clause) "I bought an apple." (Independent clause). Dependent clauses can be paired with independent clauses to build sentences.
- Plus Plan
Noun and Verb Sentence Puzzles
Use this nouns and verbs game puzzle to help students identify nouns and their matching verbs while building simple sentences in a fun, hands-on way.
- Plus Plan
SPLAT! Types of Sentences Card Game
Play SPLAT!, a types of sentences game to help your students learn to identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences
- Plus Plan
Sentence Types Quiz (1st Grade)
Assess your students ability to identify types of sentences and their matching punctuation with a printable Sentence Types Quiz for 1st grade.
- Plus Plan
Emoji-Sentence Sorting Activity (1-2)
Teach your students about statement, command, exclamation, and question sentences with our Emoji Sentence sorting activity.
- Plus Plan
Super Sentence Game - Statement, Command, Exclamation & Question
Turn sentence structure practice into an exciting game with the Super Sentence Game for 1st grade and 2nd grade.
- Plus Plan
Editing Incomplete Sentences Teaching Slides
Teach your students how to correct incomplete sentences with a comprehensive Editing Incomplete Sentences Grammar PowerPoint.
- Plus Plan
Run-On Sentence Practice - Worksheet Pack
Give your students more run-on sentence practice with a Run-On Sentence Worksheet pack.
- Plus Plan
Stretchy Sentences Worksheet
Use this worksheet to help your students write detailed and descriptive sentences.
- Plus Plan
Trace, Draw and Order Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of sentence cut-and-paste worksheets to help your students build simple sentences.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Writing Center - Types of Sentences for 2nd Grade
Help your students answer “What Type of Sentence Is This?’ with a printable Christmas sorting activity on the 4 types of sentences.
- Plus Plan
3rd Grade English Worksheets - Christmas Printables
Add some Christmas spirit to your December grammar lessons with a printable pack of Christmas-themed 3rd-grade English worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Conjunctions Spinners (Coordinating Conjunctions, Subordinating Conjunctions, Correlative Conjunctions)
Bring some fun to your grammar lessons with these colorful conjunctions spinners! Students spin to reveal a conjunction to use in their writing or oral language.
- Plus Plan
Coordinating Conjunctions Dice Game
Use this hands on activity for students to create two 8 sided-dice and write compound sentences using coordinating conjunctions.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms and Antonyms - Build a Sentence Interactive
Build strong vocabulary and sentence-writing skills with an interactive synonyms and antonyms sentence-building activity.
- Plus Plan
Easter Grammar - Worksheets
Practice grammar conventions with a pack of Easter English worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Cupid's Compound Sentences Valentine's Day Activity
Build some sweet sentence writing skills using a fun Valentine’s Day Compound Sentence interactive activity.
- Plus Plan
St. Patrick's Day Writing Prompt Worksheets
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and write imaginative stories using a collection of narrative writing prompts.
- Plus Plan
Holiday Worksheet - Easter Sentences
Build and write sentences about Easter sentence-building worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Christmas - Simple, Complex, and Compound Sentence Sort
Practice reading, identifying, and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with a Christmas cut and paste worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Worksheet - Sentence Editing
Edit and correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and spacing errors with a set of Christmas Fix the Sentence worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Springtime Sentence Building - Interactive Activity
Build a strong sentence-writing foundation with an interactive spring sentence-building activity.
- Plus Plan
Write About It! Spring Sentence Writing Worksheets
Introduce new writers to writing complete sentences in early grades with a group of kindergarten writing prompts about spring.
- Plus Plan
United States Patriotic Symbols - Holiday Worksheets
Build and write sentences about patriotic holidays in the United States with a group of six holiday sentence-building worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Write About It! Halloween Costumes
Differentiate writing instruction in primary grades with a group of leveled Halloween writing prompts about Halloween costumes.
- Plus Plan
Halloween Writing Prompts - Bats
Differentiate writing instruction in primary grades with a group of leveled Halloween writing prompts about bats.
- Plus Plan
Write About It! Spiders
Differentiate writing instruction in primary grades with a group of leveled informational writing prompts about spiders
- Plus Plan
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Sentence Worksheet
Build, read, and write sentences about Martin Luther King, Jr. with a cut-and-paste sentence building worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Build a Sentence Worksheet
Build and write sentences about Earth Day with a cut-and-paste Earth Day worksheet for kindergarten and first grade.
- Plus Plan
Patriotic Holiday Worksheets – Sentence Building
Build and write sentences about different patriotic holidays with this cut-and-paste worksheet
- Free Plan
Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
- Plus Plan
Subject Verb Agreement (Irregular Verbs) Digital Activity
Teach subject-verb agreement of irregular verbs with this engaging digital activity, where students will master tricky pairs like was/were, is/are, has/have and do/does.
- Plus Plan
Identifying Dependent Clauses Worksheet
Practice identifying dependent clauses in complex sentences with a dependent clause worksheet.
- Sentence Structure Worksheets
- Sentence Structure Games
- Sentence Structure Templates
- Sentence Structure Posters
- Sentence Structure for Kindergarten
- Sentence Structure for 1st Grade
- Sentence Structure for 2nd Grade
- Sentence Structure for 3rd Grade
- Sentence Structure for 4th Grade
- Sentence Structure for 5th Grade
- Sentence Structure for 6th Grade