Sentence Trains! A Fun and Engaging Year 1 Sentence Building Activity

Teaching beginning writers about the types of sentences is essential for helping them develop strong writing skills. Knowing the differences between command, statement, question, and exclamation sentences—and their proper punctuation—lays the foundation for clear and effective communication.

This interactive sentence-building card game is a high-quality resource designed to help year 1 students grasp these sentence structures in a fun and engaging way. Using this resource, students will strengthen their ability to build, identify, and correctly punctuate the 4 sentence types.

Practise Building Statements, Exclamation, and Question Sentences 

Make learning about statement, exclamation, and question sentences exciting with our printable sentence-building activity! This hands-on resource includes a variety of sentence train cards that students can use to construct different types of sentences.

This sentence-building activity includes different coloured train cards: subject, verb, object, punctuation, and question words. Print the cards on cardboard for durability, cut them apart, and allow students to build sentences. It is perfect for use as an independent activity or word work station. You can also use this activity for a whole group in a pocket chart or beneath a document camera.

We have also included blank train cards (in case you need to add a word) and a printable sentence-type exit ticket for use as a formative assessment to check for student understanding.

Download Your Year 1 Writing Activity

This year 1 writing activity is available in an easy-to-use Google Slides format, allowing for easy editing. Download the resource, make any edits to tailor it to your student’s needs, and use it for whole-class instruction, small-group practise, or independent learning.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher and Teach Starter Collaborator.

Enhance Learning with More Year 1 Sentence Writing Activities

Pair this engaging year 1 sentence writing activity with our other Year 1 sentence-building resources to provide additional practise and reinforcement.

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Super Sentence Game - Statement, Command, Exclamation & Question

Turn sentence structure practice into an exciting game with the Super Sentence Game for Year 1 and 2.

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Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation Cut and Paste Worksheet

Identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with a Types of Sentences Cut and Paste worksheet for Year 2.