Sentence Building Activities with a Fun Word Train

Teaching kids how to make a sentence might sound boring. But it can actually be fun with sentence building games. Since we’re raising bilingual children, we’re sharing sentence building activities in Chinese and English.

Make-A-Sentence Post-It Note Train Activity

But as usual, you can try this activity in Korean, Spanish, Hindi, or any other language!

The good news is that this make-a-sentence activity is simple enough for parents who are raising bilingual children to try at home.

Benefits of sentence building activities

When they learn how to make a sentence, they understand the order of nouns, verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech.

In other words, learning sentence structure helps children understand proper grammar.

For bilingual or multilingual children, sentence building activities can help children notice the amazing similarities and differences between languages.

When are kids ready to try sentence building activities?

Since kids learn all sorts of skills at various ages, the exact age to start trying sentence building activities is going to be quite variable.

Verbally, most children are speaking in short sentences by age 2 to 3 years, and from a literacy standpoint, most are reading by age 6 to 7. When children are learning to read, this is a great time to teach the breakdown of sentence structure.

As children become familiar with the patterns of grammar, make-a-sentence activities can feel satisfying like putting together a jigsaw puzzle!

On a personal note, I first introduced our Chinese sentence word train activity when my daughter was able to read a few hundred Chinese characters. At that time, grammar games were too difficult, boring, and irrelevant. Realizing that she was not yet ready, I put away the activity.

After a year of reading many Chinese books independently and confidently, she was ready to learn and understand sentence structure. This time, she enjoyed these sentence building games!

Recommended supplies for sentence building train activity

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Black construction paper
Index cards
Square and circle stencils
Scissors
Pen
Post-It notes
Glue or double-sided tape
Free printable train template and coloring sheet in simplified and traditional Chinese

cutting tires for sentence building train activity

How to set up the make-a-sentence word train activity

Draw/trace and cut out train template
Select desired number of index cards. For beginner readers, would start with 1-2 index cards.
Trace two squares on each index card. These are the windows. Optional: you can label them “窗戶” (Note that window translates to the same characters in simplified and traditional Chinese).
Trace half circles on the bottom of each index card. Optional: for extra exposure to new Chinese words, you can label the tires “轮胎” (simplified Chinese) or “輪胎” (traditional Chinese).
Trace and cut circles for the wheels and have your child cut them out.
Cut Post-It notes and write desired words on the train
Tape tires to bottom of each index card.

Fun sentence building word train activities

Here are a few different sentence structure activities you can try with your child or student. There are so many fun options that suit different learning levels and styles. See which sentence building game is best for your child!

1. Listen and make the sentence

This listening activity is a great starting point for kids to build sentences. Write words on Post-it notes and spread them out on the table. Then read the sentence out loud.

For example: 火车有多少个车轮？/ 火車有多少個車輪？(Huǒchē yǒu duōshǎo gè chēlún? / How many wheels does the train have?)

While listening to my sentence, my child would find the word and stick it on the train window.

Note that it’s always important to make time for open-ended chatting and questions. I remember my daughter asking curious questions like: 为什么火车有这么多轮子？/ 為什麼火車有這麼多輪子？(Wèishéme zhēngqì huǒchē yǒu zhème duō lúnzi? / Why do trains have so many wheels?)

2. Parts of a sentence matching activity

Another simple starting game is to write words on the train windows. Then have your child find the matching word on Post-It notes. When they find the matching word, they can paste it onto the train.

3. Fill in blank word train Mad Libs

Mad Libs is an awesome grammar awareness game as kids need to figure out which word is missing in a sentence.

With your sentence building train activity, leave out the nouns and let your child fill in the blanks. In another lesson, you can use the activity to focus on verbs and other parts of a speech.

4. Make the mystery sentence

Make a sentence game Chinese word train with Post-It notes

When children are more fluent at reading, you can give them a stack of Post-It notes with different words and let them discover the mystery sentence on their own.

A few days after doing the prior activities, my daughter said she wanted to try to make the sentence herself! It was fun to see how she laid out various Chinese words like puzzle pieces while building each part of the sentence.

5. Write the missing word in the train

For kids who are ready to practice writing, take the sentence building activities to the next level and invite them to write the missing word in the train!

Other ways to practice sentence building through games and activities

Parents and teachers can simplify these and try using regular index cards or Post-It notes. While the word train gives a memorable context, the preparation might be too time consuming for busy schedules.