Classroom Games to Teach Conjunctions

Classroom Games to Teach Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so that are used to link phrases, words and clauses together. The easy way to remember them is memorising that the first letters of these words from the word FANBOYS together. Conjunction games can be used in the classroom as part of the grammar component in a language arts class. The interactive nature of games may motivate students better than desk work. Games increase cooperation and create excitement through friendly competition.

1 Think and Retain

Conjunction games teach students how to link nouns, clauses and phrases. To play, two students can write a noun, clause or phrase beside each other on a board. The other students form two teams. Each team take turns writing a conjunction to link the two nouns, clauses or phrases without repeating the conjunction. Whichever team gets the most links wins the game. This activity encourages students to use conjunctions, and because students write the conjunctions on the board, the visual aspect helps them better retain the words.

2 Familiarity and Creativity

Kids love to play Bingo. With a Bingo format, you can design cards with nine spaces with a conjunction in each space. When the teacher calls out a conjunction, the student with that conjunction on her card says a sentence that uses the word before she can mark her card. When a student gets three conjunction words in a row, he wins. Using this technique can engage students so that they become familiar with conjunctions.

3 Analyze and Reason

Kids can have fun spinning a wheel to answer conjunction questions in anticipation of where the pointer will land. Each area on the wheel may pertain to a specific category, such as school, music, food or other areas of interest. Each question requires the blank to be filled in. For example: "I can play with my friends (blank) eat dinner later." The multiple choice answers could be "and," "then," "during" and "when." Multiple choice games encourage students to analyze and reason.

4 Challenge

Challenge games, such as Hangman, encourage students to work together to guess mystery conjunctions letter by letter. Memory games prompt students to find pairs of matching conjunction words. Word search puzzles challenge students to find conjunctions hidden within a page full of letters. Puzzles help students become familiar with a variety of conjunction words while creating a challenge and building excitement as students try to be the first to complete the puzzles.