Narrative Sentence Starter Cards

Use the Narrative Sentence Starter Cards to encourage your students to write something imaginative and interesting.

Print the cards out of tabloid size and stick them up on the board to stimulate your students.

Sentence starters include:

• I found a strange package by the door…
• Brrrringggg! I answered the phone and…
• There was an octopus in my pool…
• The rhino was following me to the…
• He had been squished flatter than a pancake…
• I heard an explosion in the science lab…
• The rain was pouring down…
• At the Dinosaur Park, I rode a…
• The space invaders jumped off the screen…
• I was looking out the port hole…
• A bat flew in my window and told me…
• I was on safari and a giant tiger…
• I stepped outside and a monkey…
• I was hiding in my tree house…
• My new friend is a robot and…
• I fell over a mysterious object…
• I was saved from the quicksand by…
• I set the Guinness World Record for…
• Yesterday I discovered my super power was…
• I picked up the moon rock and…
• We had a full tank of fuel and…
• I was riding my whale to…
• “They call me Dr. Snail and…”
• I went to the masquerade ball as a…
• “Wake up,” the dragon shouted to…
• I met a scatter-brained lizard in the desert…
• When I was a tightrope walker…
• There was money everywhere and…
• The box of treasure was…
• The pirate was coming…

Common Core State Standards alignment

• Grade 1 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3

  Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure....

• Grade 2 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.3

  Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure....

• Grade 3 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3 > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3.A

  Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally....

• Grade 3 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Range of Writing > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.10

  Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences....

• Grade 4 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3 > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.A

  Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally....

• Grade 5 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3 > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3.A

  Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally....

• Grade 5 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Range of Writing > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.10

  Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences....

• Grade 6 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Text Types and Purposes > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3 > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.A

  Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically....

• Grade 6 > English Language Arts Standards > Writing > Range of Writing > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.10

  Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences....

• Grade 1 > English Language Arts Standards > Language > Conventions of Standard English > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1 > CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.J

  Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts....

Find more resources for these topics

Homework Basket ActivitiesSentence StartersNarrative WritingWriting Prompts