Pumpkin punctuation

Students will identify different end punctuation marks that are used in a book they read, and then use those punctuation marks in sentences they write.

A lesson plan for grade 1 English Language Arts

By Sherry Harris

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Learning outcomes

Students will identify and use periods and question marks in their writing with 90% accuracy.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

40 minutes

Materials/resources

• big book Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington
• pocket chart
• sentence strips
• pumpkin sticks with periods, question marks, and exclamation points on them
• paper
• pencils
• pumpkin word banks

Pre-activities

• Students will be familiar with the growth cycle of pumpkins and descriptive words for pumpkins.
• Students will be familiar with the big book Pumpkin, Pumpkin and identifying punctuation marks in the book.

Activities

1. The teacher will take a deep breath and read a story of at least 3 sentences that is written on the board without any punctuation in it.
2. The teacher will then explain to the students that punctuation is very important because it tells the reader when to pause or stop when reading. The teacher will explain that periods are used at the end of telling sentences. The teacher will have students hold up their period stick to tell her to stop at the end of the sentence.
3. The teacher will show students two examples of telling sentences from the sentence strips in the pocket chart. Then, the teacher will explain that question marks are used at the end of asking sentences. The teacher and students will make a list of question words (what, why, could, may, etc.) that signal that the sentence needs a question mark. Then the teacher will have students hold up their question stick to signal that the sentence is a question. (Teachers with Spanish-speaking or Spanish-learning students should mention that in Spanish the question mark comes at both the beginning and end of a question.)
4. Next, the teacher will show students two examples of asking sentences in the pocket chart.
5. Last, the teacher will explain that exclamation points are used at the end of sentences that show strong feeling or excitement.
6. The teacher will show students two examples of exciting sentences.
7. The teacher will tell students that now they are going to read the story on the board together aloud and when they see a ________, they are to decide whether a period or a question mark goes there and hold up their sticks.
8. The teacher will model how they are to respond when she says, “show me.” Students are to hold up pumpkin sticks with punctuation marks when the teacher says “show me.”
9. The class reads through the story on the board showing their period/question mark/exclamation point pumpkin sticks.
10. Then, the teacher will tell the students that now they are going to write descriptive sentences about pumpkins using correct punctuation. They need to have at least one telling sentence, one asking sentence, and one exciting sentence.
11. Students will be provided with individual “pumpkin word banks” of descriptive words. The teacher will pull a small group of students that need extra support and assistance in writing. The teacher will set the timer for about 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, the teacher will tell the students that they will have the opportunity to share their sentences tomorrow.
12. For the conclusion of the lesson, the teacher will show the students three sentences in the pocket chart and have them hold up their punctuation sticks to determine if they need a period, question mark, or exclamation point and they will state orally what each one is used for.

Assessment

The teacher will evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson by reading the student’s descriptive sentences and determining if they used periods, question marks, and exclamation points appropriately with 90% accuracy or more.

Supplemental information

Comments

This is a great lesson for fall!