Today we are going to focus on sentences. A sentence is a group of words that make a complete thought. When we write a sentence, we want to put our words in the correct order so readers can know what we mean. A sentence has two basic parts: a naming part and an action part.

We're going to learn how to build a sentence with the two basic parts that a sentence must have: a naming part, called a subject, and an action part, called a predicate. Sentences also need a capital letter at the beginning and end punctuation at the end. 

Here are the two parts of a basic sentence. We need both parts for our sentence to be a complete thought. If we do not have both parts, it is a sentence fragment and not a sentence.

Our yellow card is the naming part. What part is this? (Children echo: the naming part.) This part of the sentence is also called the subject. What is this part also called? (Children echo: the subject). Right. It tells the reader who or what the sentence is about. Let’s read who or what this sentence is about.

Our blue card is the action part. What part is this? (Children echo: the action part.) This part of the sentence is also called the predicate. What is this part also called? (Children echo: the predicate.) It tells the reader what the subject is doing. Let’s read about what the cat is doing.

If we just had the naming part we would have a fragment. Fragments are just pieces of a sentence. They leave the reader confused and asking questions to complete the thought. For example, if I said to you, “A frog … “ and then said nothing else, you are left with questions. What is the frog doing? If I just said, “jumps,” you are also left with questions. Who or what jumps?

Let’s look at the beginning of these sentences. Every sentence starts with a capital letter. And let’s look at the end. Every sentence ends with a stop sign, or end punctuation. The end punctuation here is called a period.