Very Silly Sentences

This older cousin of the Funny Phonics game achieves the same standard of replay-ability and motivating fun in practice, only with the goal of learning parts of speech.

Up to four sentence constructors can play. Durable game board, double-sided player boards and cards offset the somewhat flimsy 12-sided cardstock die (that you may need to reinforce with tape!). Strategy, chance, and changing outcomes keep game play exciting. There are two levels of play.

The shorter version, for younger readers, requires them to make only two, six-word sentences using four parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, articles, and verbs. If you are playing with even younger children, you can play with just nouns, adjectives, and verbs (by folding the player boards differently).

The longer version requires two complete sentences, each using 2 adjectives, 2 nouns, a verb, article, and preposition. The 136 word and picture cards are color-coded by function and stacked in piles by color on the game board. Players move around the board depending on rolls of the die and/or instructions on the game board, collecting part of speech cards. If they're lucky, they'll roll or land on a space that lets them choose "Any Card", giving them an edge in completing sentences (more quickly and sillier). Word cards must be read (most are simple words and sight words) to be won. Sentences are constructed from collected cards by placing them on the correctly labeled (noun, verb, etc.) squares on player boards. The winner is the first person to make two silly sentences and read them aloud.

Depending upon the reading level of your children, you may control the type (word or picture) of card used or its difficulty or even use two separate decks for differing reading abilities among players (You can always expand play, too, by making some of your own cards to use with the game). It's a great little game for practicing sentence construction and parts of speech in an entertaining context.