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.
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Changing Verb Tenses Interactive Google Slides Activity
Provide your students with a digital learning environment to practice using past, present, and future tense verbs.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
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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.
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Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation – Cut and Paste Worksheet
Identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with a Types of Sentences Cut and Paste worksheet for 2nd grade.
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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.
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Dressing Up A Sentence - Interactive or Printable Activity
Encourage students to add more descriptive language into their sentence writing with this activity.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 4
Help your 4th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Poster
A poster to display in the classroom showing the components of a sentence.
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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.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Sort
Practice reading, identifying, and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with a sorting activity.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 6
Help your 6th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 5
Help your 5th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Roll and Write - Simple and Compound Sentences
Practice writing simple and compound sentences with our Roll and Write activity.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
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Comma Task Cards - Grades 4-6
Practice correct comma placement in dates, series, and compound and complex sentences.
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Google Slides Interactive- Past, Present, and Future Verbs Activity
Develop student skills using the correct forms of past, present, and future tense verbs with this Google Slides Interactive activity.
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Everyday Grammar Sentence Structure Warm-Ups – Grades 1 and 2 Interactive PowerPoint
An engaging 40 slide interactive PowerPoint to use in the lower grades classroom when learning about sentence structure.
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Writing Compound Sentences Worksheet
Spark students' creativity with this conjunctions worksheet containing four images to prompt students to write compound sentences.
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Singular and Plural-Subject-Verb Agreement Worksheet
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a worksheet focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Is/Are Subject Verb Agreement Worksheet
Provide students with additional subject-verb agreement practice with a worksheet focusing on using is and are correctly.
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Trace, Draw, and Order Sentences Worksheets
A set of sentence building worksheets.
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Making Sentences – Cut and Paste Worksheets
A set of 10 cut and paste worksheets for making short sentences.
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What's the Opposite? Differentiated Antonym Vocabulary Game
Build vocabulary and recognition of antonyms with a fun game of Antonyms Scoot!
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Singular/Plural Subject Verb Agreement Card Game
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a card game focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Past, Present, and Future Verb Tense Matching Activity - Regular Verbs
Practice using past, present, and future tenses of regular verbs with a butterfly matching activity.
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Do/Does Subject Verb Agreement Worksheet
Provide students with additional subject-verb agreement practice with a worksheet focusing on using DO and DOES correctly.
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Editing for Incomplete Sentences Worksheet
Read a short text passage, underline and rewrite all incomplete sentences in this 2-page worksheet.
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Synonyms and Antonyms - Build a Sentence Interactive
Build strong vocabulary and sentence-writing skills with an interactive synonyms and antonyms sentence-building activity.
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Daily Grammar - Sentence Structure Warm-Ups – Grades 3 and 4
An engaging 40-slide interactive Google Slides deck to use in grades 3 and 4 when learning about grammar and sentence structure.
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Springtime Sentence Building - Interactive Activity
Build a strong sentence-writing foundation with an interactive spring sentence-building activity.
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Singular and Plural Subject-Verb Agreement Sort
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a sorting activity focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
- 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