Here are some fun sentences to teach the correct use of full stops – and capital letters.
For What Age? 8-16
Difficulty: increases gradually. If the first section looks stupidly easy (to them), skip to something that just looks ‘fairly easy’ until they find their level.
How to Use: for younger children, re-write with correct punctuation. This is good handwriting practice. For teens, cut and paste into a word document; let them correct it. There’s a cut-and-paste-friendly version at the end of the post.
LEVEL ONE
There are two sentences in need of punctuation in these examples:
[1]
(a) i hate sprouts sprouts taste like boiled underpants
[2]
(a) i went to the fun fair the fun fair was full of scary clowns
LEVEL TWO
Here, each example contains three sentences in need of punctuation:
[3]
i saw bob bob saw me we looked at each other
[4]
(a) i saw the elephant the elephant was hitting another elephant with a twig the other elephant got angry
You can rewrite this into one sentence like so: When I saw the elephant, it was hitting another elephant with a twig, making it angry. N.B. readers always assume ‘it‘ refers to the last thing or person mentioned.
[5]
it was raining fish i didn’t feel like going outside the fish looked evil with sharp teeth
You can re-write this into one sentence like so: I didn’t feel like going outside, because fish were raining from the sky and they looked evil with sharp teeth.
LEVEL THREE
Here, we have more complicated sentences (involving connectives). You will also need to add apostrophes:
[6] two sentences
because toddlers love crunchy food they will often eat snails if there are no snails they will happily eat woodlice even though woodlice arent as crunchy
[7] three sentences
sometimes when i travel in a car i feel sick whenever i am i try to aim it out of the window occasionally i miss and hit the back of dads head
[8] three sentences
when im older i’m going to eat sweets for breakfast crisps for lunch and go to bed at two in the morning i’ll wear pyjamas to work and never share anything with anybody except my friend ben when he comes over well play call of duty till we cant feel our fingers anymore
scroll down for answers…
[6]
Because toddlers love crunchy food, they will often eat snail. If there are no snails they will happily eat woodlice even though woodlice aren’t as crunchy.
[7]
Sometimes when I travel in a car, I feel sick. Whenever I am, I try to aim it out of the window. Occasionally, I miss and hit the back of dad’s head.
[8]
When I’m older, I’m going to eat sweets for breakfast, crisps for lunch, and go to bed at two in the morning. I’ll wear pyjamas to work and never share anything with anybody except my friend Ben. When he comes over, we’ll play Call of Duty till we can’t feel our fingers anymore.
Cut and Paste Friendly
LEVEL ONE Each example contains two sentences that need punctuation.
1. i hate sprouts sprouts taste like boiled underpants
2. i went to the fun fair the fun fair was full of scary clowns
LEVEL TWO Each example contains three sentences in need of punctuation.
[3] i saw bob bob saw me we looked at each other
[4] i saw the elephant the elephant was hitting another elephant with a twig the other elephant got angry
LEVEL THREE
Here, we have more complicated sentences (involving connectives):
[6] two sentences
because they loved crunchy food they loved to eat snails if there were no snails they would eat woodlice even though woodlice arent as crunchy
[7] three sentences
sometimes when i travel in a car i feel sick when i am i try to aim it out of the window occasionally i miss and hit the back of dads head
[8] three sentences
when im older i’m going to eat sweets for breakfast crisps for lunch and go to bed at two in the morning i’ll wear pyjamas to work and never share anything with anybody except my friend ben when he comes over well play call of duty till we cant feel our fingers anymore
LEVEL FOUR
Use connectives to join these examples into one sentence.
[9] i hate sprouts sprouts taste like boiled underpants
Join the sentences together using: ‘when they’ or ‘because they’ or ‘as they’. You can remove some of the original words. Which do you prefer?
[10] i went to the fun fair the fun fair was full of scary clowns
Join the sentences together using: ‘which’ or ‘which, unfortunately’ or ‘but it’. You can remove some of the original words. Which do you prefer?]