Build a Sentence Worksheets – FREE Printables!

Why We Love It

These worksheets are a great activity to use alongside early lessons in sentence structure and syntax. Why? Because students get to practice basic sentence building in an engaging and hands-on way.

Kids create sentences by placing pre-made phrases that contain the subject, predicate, and object in order, helping to familiarize them with these terms as they practice sentence building.

The sentences all end up being a little on the silly side, so kids actually have fun mixing and matching to create the silliest ones!

This increases engagement, making practice with sentence building memorable and fun, and that helps the lesson stick!

➡️ Here’s why we think you’ll love it, too:

• Color-coded sentence parts are used a scaffold for students still learning about sentence structure. For students with a deeper grasp, simply print the black and white version!
• Helps students develop an understanding of basic sentence structure. They will begin to identify phrases that contain the main parts of a sentence: subject, predicate, and object.
• Practice syntax by combining words and phrases correctly to make sense (even if the resulting sentence is quite silly).
• Provides a multimodal learning experience with visual and kinesthetic elements.
• Build fluency. Have kids read each phrase separately, then gradually combine them to read the full sentence more smoothly. This step-by-step approach helps develop accuracy, speed, and confidence. Repeated reading reinforces fluency, making reading more effortless over time.
• Intentional Design. The words mainly include decodable, closed syllable words or common high-frequency words. Although the purpose of this activity is to work on syntax, we also want to reinforce taught phonics concepts to ensure kids are able to read the words, too!

Using the Worksheets

Before you begin: Students should all be familiar with the terms subject, predicate, and object. The subject is the noun or pronoun doing the action, the predicate tells us what the subject is doing or being, and the object is the noun or pronoun that gets acted upon.

1. Students cut out the provided phrases. Each strip has a decodable phrase written on it that contains either the subject (green), predicate (yellow), or object (red). Print in black and white for more of a challenge.
   
2. Students paste the phrase strips into the matching colored boxes on the worksheet to create a complete sentence. They should try out different options, changing out the phrases, in order to make the sentence make sense and be the silliest it can be.
   
3. Students rewrite the completed sentence on the lines provided.
   
4. Students draw a picture of their silly sentence in the designated box.

Differentiation & Extension Ideas

There are a lot of ways to customize this activity for diverse learners and to continue and share in the learning process!

For students needing more support, use the colored-version:

• Provide a limited selection of pre-chosen subject, predicate, and object options.
• Have students to work in pairs or small groups.
• Provide sentence stems or partially completed sentences.
• Don’t use the accompanying worksheet. Allow students to pick from the piles to arrange sentences, then read them out loud.

For advanced learners:

• Allow them to use only two of the included sentence parts and challenge them to create their own text to complete the sentences. If you’re focusing on subject, for example, only give them the object and predicate boxes.
• Print in black and white. That removes the color-coded scaffold.

Offer extension activities:

• Have students share their silly sentences and drawings with the class.
• Discuss why some of the created sentences are grammatically correct even if they are nonsensical. But then explain how we want our sentences to sound right AND make sense when reading and writing!
• Use the created sentences as a starting point for storytelling or creative writing.
• Create a class book of silly sentences.