6 Ways To Have Fun Teaching Commas

I am one of those teachers who loves teaching grammar, though not for the reason that most teachers love it.

The reason I love teaching grammar is that it is easy to make movement-based, interactive, and accessible to all students. With such short classes, I have to be creative with my "brain breaks." Because so many of my reading and writing activities require such high levels of thought, many of my students view the simple application of grammar rules as a welcome chance to move around, interact, and use their minds for some "light" thinking.

My favorite grammar concept to teach is commas (as can be evidenced by the FIVE commas shirts that I own…you know you've made it as a teacher when you receive multiple comma shirts as gifts from your students). But honestly, commas can be hilarious, as evidenced by the following comma memes, which I always use to introduce this concept: 

Laughter builds a personal connection, after all.

1. Create an interactive introduction

Because there is SO MUCH to know about commas, I only introduce three of the six rules I teach at one time. I use this minilesson, which has lots of built-in practice from middle grades novels, both on each individual rule and on the rules combined. (I have my kids do these practice questions on individual whiteboards, which adds an element of fun that never gets old for most of my kids.)

2. Get kids up and moving

After we have gone over and discussed three of the rules, we practice those rules extensively. I like to start with task cards, because these can be easily divided into the rules we already know. My comma task cards are already in order by rule, which makes this easy.

3. Use kinesthetic activities

I also like to use this free sorting activity for practice, which asks students to sort the sentences into the rule with which they belong. I like to give each student or partner pair their own copy, so that they can then add the commas into each sentence once it has been sorted. I only ask students to sort the sentences that belong in our first three rules so far.

Once it seems as though students have a strong grasp on these three rules, we move on to the second half of the Powerpoint, which starts off with a short review of the first three rules, and then moves on to the final three.

Because students now know all six comma rules, there are a wide variety of fun and engaging practice activities that can occur:

4. Play Find Someone Who

 In this game, students take their paper around and ask peers to answer one question on their paper and initial. It is the job of the paper's owner to make sure that the answer given is correct! I added a second step to this, where any question that you have answered on another's paper gets a smiley face on your own, so that students looking for a challenge can make sure they try all the questions. This gets kids up and moving, while also giving them a chance to interact and teaching them that they should never rely on another's answers to be correct, but rather should always check for themselves.

5. Use puzzles to encourage collaboration

Puzzles allow students to practice both their group discussion skills and their commas skills. I give each student an individual copy of the puzzle to complete independently. Once students have completed their individual puzzles, they receive a copy of the puzzle printed on cardstock, with puzzle pieces attached. Their job is to work as a group to discuss each question and determine a final answer for each question. Once students have all their pieces placed, I check each puzzle for accuracy. I love hearing the academic discussions during this time, where students refer back to the rules they have learned to debate and defend their points!

6. Create something meaningful through writing and editing tasks

 There is little point in learning about grammar if students cannot apply their learning to their writing. And honestly, great writing requires varied sentence types, and for those, students must use commas. Because of this, I allow students to write a piece on any topic that they feel they can write comfortably on. They may write a story or an informational piece, but they must make certain to vary their sentences and use commas correctly. To help students with this, I have created this peer editing and revision sheet that focuses on increasing sentence variety through commas.

If you feel you need even more practice after this, check out the commas center in this informational text task.

I hope that, by the end of this, your kids are as excited about commas as I am!

Happy learning!

Cheers,