Dice sentence-building activities

Oral language activities to build sentences

Saying sentences is an essential prerequisite for writing sentences. There is a range of dice activities in The Oral Language Book (link to website) that support sentence building.

Here are a few activities to try in your class. All you need are the templates printed out and some dice.

Always introduce and model activities so students can successfully complete them independently. You may want to give the students a topic for their sentence building that links to writing or another curriculum area. These activities are short and fun and can be:

• A warm-up for writing
• A short oral language activity
• An independent group activity  

Activities

1. Build complex sentences

Throw the di and then build a sentence with the complex sentence structure that matches the number.

For example, a player throws ‘1’ and builds an ‘I think’ sentence.

I think the colours are changing at the same time because there is the same amount of dye in each M&M.

2. Dice building grids using word classes

Choose a grid and introduce the word class to the students. You may also want to specify a topic for the sentence building.

Students work in small groups and have turns at throwing the dice and building a sentence with the word that matches their number.

For example, a player throws ‘3’ on the ‘Abstract noun grid’ and builds the sentence:

The class showed dedication and commitment to the school garden.