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Practice with 

Subject Verb Agreement

If you have followed the steps 1-3 in Simple Steps to Sentence Sense, it should be very easy for you to find the subject and the verb. Once you find them, you can be sure they agree in number. 

This means:  

If the subject is singular, the verb must be singular.
If the subject is plural, the verb must be plural. 

Singular means one person, place, or thing.  

For example: boy, city, tree.

Plural means more than one person, place, or thing. For example: boys, cities, trees 

The subject and the verb agree in this sentence: 

The leaves are brown and brittle.

The subject and the verb do not agree in this sentence: The leaves is brown and brittle. 

is=singular   are=plural  leaf=singular  leaves=plural

It will help if you remember that singular verbs end in an “s.”

After you find the subject, decide if it is singular or plural. If it is a singular subject, be sure the verb or the helping verb ends in s.

For example:
The children (is, are) going to the park.
The subject is “children.” The word “children” is plural, so choose the plural verb. The one that does not end in “s.”  
The children are going to the park. 

The child (is, are) going to the park.The subject is “child.” The word “child” is singular, so choose the singular verb. The one that ends in “s.”  

The child is going to the park. You can see how easy it is to make the subject and verb agree in number. 
That’s because the sentence would sound strange if you were to choose the wrong verb. 

For example, who would say: The dogs barks? That sentence would probably sound wrong to anyone who reads it.

Watch for these 3 special circumstances.

1.  Sometimes, however, it is not so easy to spot a subject/verb agreement error because a prepositional phrase located between the subject and the verb can fool you. 

For example:  
One of the dancers are more experienced. 
That sentence may not sound wrong, but it is. It has an error in subject and verb agreement. 

The word “dancers” is not the subject of the sentence because it is in a prepositional phrase. 

Remember that the subject of a sentence will never be found in a prepositional phrase. 

If we follow the steps and eliminate the prepositional phrase (of the dancers); find the verb (are) and then find the subject (one), it is easy to see that the subject is singular, but the verb is plural. 
One are. 

Now you can hear the error. 
Remember: If the subject is singular, you would need a verb that ends in s.

So the sentence should read: One of the dancers is more experienced.

2.  Sometimes the subject of the sentence is compound. 

Two or more subjects joined by the conjunction “and” take a plural verb. Apples and oranges are both delicious fruits.

If two or more subjects are joined by the conjunctions “or” or “nor,” make the verb agree with the subject nearer to it.

Examples: 
The minister or the choir members are riding on the bus.

The choir members or the minister is riding on the bus.

3.   If the subject follows the verb in a sentence (such as in sentences beginning with there or here), be especially careful to find the actual subject and verb and make them agree in number.

Remember: The words there and here are never the subject of the sentence.

Example: Here (is, are) the keys to our house.
The subject of this sentence is the word "keys."

Click here for more help with subject/verb agreement and a 20 question practice exercise with answers included. 

Thanks for reading!

Free Products for Grin & Grab it Day

Grin and Grab it Day 3-22-2015

This post is about Grin and Grab it Day 3-22-2015. Several sellers are participating, and we hope you find this to be a good opportunity. If you have read this blog before, you will know Grin and Grab it Day is when we make some usually priced Teachers Pay Teachers products free for the day. We do not all live in the same time zone, so just check and see if the items are free, and"grab" them if they are. Don't wait! Of course, we so appreciate kind feedback if you like a product. This post will also point out some always free items, just in case you weren't aware of them.

















Fun Frog Theme Day: If you think you will need a substitute this spring, or you would just like to have an entire day that is just "print and go," this frog theme day would be perfect. It could be used anytime, really. Grab it and add it to your sub binder, or use it yourself in between units or after testing week.

Word Play Higher Order Thinking Skills Activity: Change a letter, change a lot! Students will find the word that matches each definition by replacing only one letter in the previous word. Fun and challenging.
  
La Casa Dream House: How about a dream house project for your Spanish students? Have your students design their dream house in descriptive detail! There are TWO rubrics included in this packet to help your students practice their writing skills. One is for a "Dream House" and the other is for "Mi Casa Nueva."  

Breakfast, Lunch, Desayuno, Almuerzo Vocabulary Practice, Cloze: “Cloze” sentences give clues to breakfast and lunch vocabulary words in Spanish. Students use their problem solving skills to decide which vocabulary word from the list makes sense in each sentence. Practice for your next meal in a Spanish restaurant!

Cootie Catcher Fortune Teller Comecocos IR in the PRETERIT: A “comecocos” is also called a “fortune teller” and a “cootie catcher.” The instructions on how to fold the paper are included in this packet.

Practice in Base Ten with the Base Ten Kids: This 65 page unit supports learning Numbers and Operations in Base Ten. There are matching games for place value and math thinking sheets. Worth your time to download and enjoy in your classroom!

Odd and Even Numbers in the Barnyard Song and Printables: You are getting a fun odd and even song ready to print and display in your class. The children love it and its helps them to remember the odd and even numbers. You are also getting 7 printables in black and white with numbers to sort for odd and even.


Similar to Pete the Cat I Have Who Has Game with Fry's First 100 Words: Grab your I Have Who Has game using the Fry's First 100 Words. There are 24 cards in this set.

Decision Making Grade 4 Personal, Family, School, Community: Here is a product usually priced $4 for fourth grade about decision making. I made this thinking about the fact children are not always taught how to decisions are made. See a free similar product, a decision making freebie, at this link.

The following products are always free by Gramma Elliott's Educational Tools. Compound Word Puzzles Free Sampler
  Long Vowel Sample Clip Art, always free

And, finally, another always free product, Insects for Your Bulletin Board! This would certainly
 capture the interest of students.   We hope you like our Grin and Grab it Day products! Thank you so much,

Teachers Are Heroes Sale on TpT

The TpT sale has been extended for one more day!

Take a look at some of the Teacher'sPayTeachers.com stores in the graphic above. These lessons are carefully written and tested by a group of dedicated Super Secondary Teachers. You can't go wrong by using one of their lessons. The price is right, too! Enjoy this sale and get up to 28% off on most products. Click here to go to the linkup and visit their stores.

Do I believe that teachers are heroes? 

Yes, I absolutely do. It would be wonderful if every child had a warm and nurturing home life, but the sad fact is some of them don't. Sometimes the only smile and kind word that children receive all day is from their teacher.

The responsibility that teachers bear to keep their students safe from harm, to keep them engaged and interested, and to challenge their minds is a huge endeavor.

I admire everyone involved in the work of helping shape our children's lives. Bravo teachers, and thank you!

Be sure to enter the promo code HEROES at checkout.

My enitre store in on sale for two days including the Simple Steps to Sentence Sense series.
Click here to see what people are saying about Simple Steps to Sentence Sense.
Click here to visit my store.

Thanks for reading!

Two Spaces Between Sentences is a No No

Proofreading is a skill that all writers must master. If you are using a typewriter like the one pictured above, this article is not for you. However, if you are using a word processor or a computer, the rule about the spaces between sentences has changed.

After you have labored over an article, an essay, or a piece of fiction trying to say exactly what you mean, it would be a shame to ruin the whole effect with mistakes. If you do not find the errors before you submit your piece, believe me, someone else will.

Many people make the mistake of placing two spaces between sentences when using a computer or a word processor. It is totally incorrect to do so. That practice is a holdover from typing class. It was necessary then, but it is wrong to do so now.

There is a difference between typesetting and typing, and we computer users are actually doing our own typesetting.

You can read more about it here.

If you have already created something and need to change your document so that there is only one space between each sentence you can use the FIND feature in WORD.

Press Ctrl Find on a P.C. or Command Find on a Mac. Click on the Replace tab. In the first box type a period and two spaces. In the second box, type a period and one space. Then click on replace all.

Remember, you will also have to do that for several other combinations.

If you are writing dialogue, you will need to also find the following:

."

?"

!"

After you have finished making the changes, you can run a check to see if you missed anything.

1. Click the round Office button in the upper-left corner of the window.

2. Click the Word Options button.

3. Click Proofing.

4. Down near Grammar, click the Settings button.

5. Set the "Spaces required between sentences" list box to 1.

6. Click OK.

Then go to the Review Tab on the ribbon and do a spell check. It will stop on sentences that have more than one space between them. In the future, you will see a red wavy line between sentences that have more than one space.

Everything you write using a computer or a tablet will look more professional if you single space between sentences.

Click here to visit my TpT store to find lots of helpful products to improve your writing.

Thanks for reading,