Sentence conventions

After being totally inspired by Elizabeth from Kickin' it in Kindergarten's sentence chant, I started using hers, with some changes. These are our 'lyrics':

A sentence has a capital, a capital and punctuation.

Full stop, question mark, exclamation mark.

Finger spaces, finger spaces. Don't forget your finger spaces!

While we chant the first line we make our hands make a 'big' action (a bit like the capitals hand cue in this video) for 'capital', then we point with our fingers in the air three times for 'punc-tu-ation'. For the next line we make the three types of punctuation in the air with our fingers. Then for the last line we put two fingers together (just like we would when we are writing) and push our hands forward, alternating left/right/left/right. I hope that all makes sense! I'm not really confident enough to film myself, but maybe one day!

Before we start writing each day we go through our chant and I have drawn some reminders on the SmartBoard to help us remember. The kids are GREAT at it now! I have seen a big change in their writing particularly with their finger spaces and their use of punctuation - they experiment with more than just full stops. They have even started to suggest their own lines, like 'a sentence has words' or 'a word has letters together'.