Cobbled Sentences

This is an activity I love to do, but it's important to be very careful about how we do it lest it either

a. make so little sense as to no longer be comprehensible input or

b. be repetitive enough as to no longer be compelling.

Cobbling sentences is essentially the creation of mad lib sentences out of elements the students created and then mixed up - thus why it can stop making sense if you're not careful. On the other hand, it is also frequently hilarious, and thus compelling.

Students write a sentence with certain elements included in it. Today, it was present and perfect participles. For example:

Marcus, saltans, puerum vexatum spectat. (Marcus, dancing, watches the boy who got annoyed.)

Then, we cut up the sentence and distribute them amongst a certain number of boxes.  Once they've been distributed, I draw a piece of paper from each box to create a mad lib sentence.

I read the sentence to the students, and then we circle it several times to make sure they understand. Then, they get about forty seconds to draw a picture of it in detail. We show the pictures around, I ask them pointed questions about various images (thus getting in more repetitions), and then if anyone wants to tell me the sentence-story, I let them do that (and sometimes give them candy).

This particular activity is a wonderful comprehension activity, since it involves drawing as well as multiple repetitions. It can be targeted at specific ideas pretty easily, can draw from a story you've told, or any number of other ideas. It also lends itself to extension activities pretty well - one word image, stories, gallery walks, etc.