Sentence Structure Teaching Resources
Teach students the elements of sentence structure this school year with printable worksheets, sentence-building activities, sorting games and more elementary school teaching resources designed to help extend your students' understanding of how to write clear and concise sentences that follow the rules of English grammar.
This extensive collection of teaching resources has been created by teachers for teachers like you. Aligned to the Common Core curriculum, the ELA collection includes editable worksheets and teaching presentations and more to save elementary teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this sentence collection has been carefully reviewed and curated by our team. That means it's ready to use in the classroom! You'll even find editable resources, plus differentiated options.
New to teaching about sentence structure, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team!
English Sentence Structure Explained
From subjects to predicates, objects to clauses, the English language is packed with rules specific to sentence structure that students need to learn on the way to becoming proficient writers.
Ready to break down how to build a sentence in English and look at some examples? Let's go!
Subject
The subject of a sentence is the noun or pronoun that performs the action or is described in the sentence.
For example, in the sentence "Jaquan did his homework," Jaquan is the subject.
Predicate
The predicate of a sentence expresses the action or state of being in a sentence.
Let's go back to the sentence "Jaquan did his homework." In this case, did is the predicate.
Object
The object of a sentence is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb.
For example, "homework" would be the object in "Jaquan did his homework."
Complement
The complement of a sentence is a word or phrase that completes the meaning of a sentence.
The complement can be a direct object, indirect object, or subject complement.
For example: "a doctor" in "She became a doctor."
Modifier
A modifier in a sentence provides additional information about a word or phrase in the sentence. It can be an adjective or an adverb. Example: "kind" in "She was a kind teacher."
What Are Clauses?
Clauses are groups of words containing a subject and a verb. They're important to understand when learning sentence structure. After all, one kind of clause is a sentence!
There are two main types of clauses:
- Independent Clause — An independent clause can stand alone as a complete sentence because it expresses a complete thought. For example: "I did all of my homework."
- Dependent Clause — A dependent clause cannot stand alone as a sentence because it does not express a complete thought. It relies on an independent clause to make sense. Example: "When I went to the store," (Dependent clause) "I bought an apple." (Independent clause). Dependent clauses can be paired with independent clauses to build sentences.
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Find What Doesn’t Fit: Relevant Details Worksheet
Practice determining what details are relevant and irrelevant to a topic while providing a purposeful context.
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United States Patriotic Symbols - Holiday Worksheets
Build and write sentences about patriotic holidays in the United States with a group of six holiday sentence-building worksheets.
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Roll and Write - Simple and Compound Sentences
Practice writing simple and compound sentences with our Roll and Write activity.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
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Singular/Plural Subject Verb Agreement Google Slides Interactive Activity
Improve sentence structure and grammar skills with a Google Interactive resource that focuses on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Singular/Plural Subject Verb Agreement Card Game
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a card game focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Thanksgiving Build-a-Sentence Worksheet
Build and write sentences about Thanksgiving with a cut-and-paste Thanksgiving worksheet for kindergarten and first grade.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
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Main Clauses and Subordinate Clauses Poster
A poster explaining main clauses and subordinate clauses.
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Very Important Verbs Worksheet
A worksheet in the theme of The Gingerbread Man that explores the importance of verbs.
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3rd Grade English Worksheets - Christmas Printables
Add some Christmas spirit to your December grammar lessons with a printable pack of Christmas-themed 3rd-grade English worksheets.
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FANBOYS Poster for Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions
Display this grammar poster in your classroom to help students choose appropriate coordinating conjunctions using the acronym FANBOYS.
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Subject-Verb Agreement Digital Learning Activity
Improve sentence structure and grammar skills with a Google Interactive resource that focuses on a range of subject-verb agreement rules.
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Singular and Plural-Subject-Verb Agreement Worksheet
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a worksheet focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Writing Compound Sentences with Conjunctions Worksheet
Assign this worksheet to allow students to practice using coordinating conjunctions to create compound sentences.
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My Drawing of the Gingerbread Man Worksheet
An engaging worksheet in the theme of the Gingerbread Man that explores the use of adjectives through drawing.
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Daily Grammar - Sentence Structure Warm-Ups – Grades 3 and 4
An engaging 40-slide interactive Google Slides deck to use in grades 3 and 4 when learning about grammar and sentence structure.
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Write About It! Christmas Sentence Builder Pack
Write around the Christmas tree with a group of Christmas sentence building worksheets for beginning writers.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
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Singular and Plural Subject-Verb Agreement Sort
Provide students with additional grammar practice with a sorting activity focusing on singular and plural subject-verb agreement.
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Past, Present, and Future Tense Worksheets - Grades 1/2
Provide students with additional verb tense practice with worksheets focusing on changing verbs into past, present, and future tense.
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Dressing Up A Sentence - Interactive or Printable Activity
Encourage students to add more descriptive language into their sentence writing with this activity.
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Subject-Verb Stomp! Verb Agreement Board Game
Play a game of Subject-Verb Stomp! to engage your learners and build better sentence-writing skills.
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Was/Were Subject Verb Agreement Worksheet
Provide students with additional subject-verb agreement practice with a worksheet focusing on using was and were correctly
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Build It! - End Punctuation Task Cards
A set of 20 task cards, directions, and answer key to practice forming end punctuation.
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Making Sentences – Cut and Paste Worksheets
A set of 10 cut and paste worksheets for making short sentences.
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Types of Clauses Posters
A set of five posters examining the structure of independent and dependent clauses.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Flashcards
Use this set of 16 colorful flashcards to introduce students to the attributes that make up simple, compound and complex sentences.
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Statement, Question, Command & Exclamation Sentences Teaching Slides
Introduce statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with an interactive teaching slide deck.
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Trace, Draw and Order Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of sentence cut-and-paste worksheets to help your students build simple sentences.
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Independent and Dependent Clauses - Worksheet Pack
Introduce the concept of independent and dependent clauses with a set of printable sentence structure worksheets.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Poster Pack
Display and use these handy anchor charts to teach your students about simple, compound, and complex sentences.
- Sentence Structure Worksheets
- Sentence Structure Games
- Sentence Structure Templates
- Sentence Structure Posters
- Sentence Structure for Kindergarten
- Sentence Structure for 1st Grade
- Sentence Structure for 2nd Grade
- Sentence Structure for 3rd Grade
- Sentence Structure for 4th Grade
- Sentence Structure for 5th Grade
- Sentence Structure for 6th Grade