Systematic and Explicit Instruction on Using Objects in Complete Sentences

Nov 14, 2023

2 min read

What are Objects in a Sentence?

The object of a sentence is the person or thing that the action in the sentence is happening to or is affected by. For example, in the sentence Sarah is reading the book, the book is the object because the book is what Sarah is reading. The object of a sentence can be a noun or a pronoun, but this lesson will only teach nouns. The next lesson will be about object pronouns. As students get older, they will learn about direct and indirect objects, but that is not covered in this program.

Here is a video to help your students understand objects in a sentence.

Example Sentences

After introducing objects to your students, you will want to show them examples. When looking at example sentences, point out the capitalized first letter, spacing between words, and ending punctuation. Speaking of ending punctuation. I recommend sticking with periods until you can give a lesson on the other types of ending punctuation.

This should be a quick part of the lesson. You can ask students what they notice but quickly point out the important parts of the sentence. In these sentences, you want students to see that we can use nouns after a verb to give more information. Some verbs require an object, but others do not. You can also combine objects and prepositions to give even more information in a sentence.

Objects Pictures

You can show these five pictures to your students to help them brainstorm objects of a sentence. Give students about thirty seconds to think about each picture. Then, have them share with a partner. Finally, collect three to five ideas per picture to record in a class anchor chart.

Printable Resources

These ideas will get you started teaching your objects lessons, but we have printable resources that will make a huge difference. Luckily, my team at For the Love has you covered! You can get all of these resources to make planning and teaching a breeze!

Word List: A list of words for the lesson for when your mind goes blank while brainstorming.

Word Chart: A tool for students to organize words they will use to write sentences. Students record words from brainstorming on their word charts, so when they write sentences, they can focus their attention on the mechanics and syntax of the sentence instead of coming up with new ideas. Word charts are the perfect place to integrate social studies and science lessons into writing.

Example Sentences: A list of example sentences that fit the purpose of the lesson. You can use these to build anchor charts, differentiate instruction or practice for students, or clarify your own understanding of the topic.

Sentence Practice: Students will use the words from their word charts to write complete sentences. The sentence practice pages have more suggestion words as well as reminders about the mechanics of a complete sentence. Students who do not need the support of the handwriting lines can write on a piece of notebook paper, or you can give them the alternate writing paper. It does not have the specific lesson information on it.