This punctuation card game is a great way to get kids excited about grammar! Fast paced, engaging and lots of opportunities for review! This is a modified form of the old favorite “Slap Jack.” The difference is that there is a center pile in addition to the player piles. The card turned over in the center pile indicates what card you are looking to slap. Once you slap the coordinating card, you turn a new card and begin to search for a new card to slap.

The Punctuation Card Game reviews:

• Period
• Question Mark
• Exclamation Point
• Comma
• Quotation Marks
• Apostrophe
• Hyphen

Multiple card formats:

• The actual mark (2 sets)
• Word Used in sentence or word (3 sets)
• Definition/Type of sentence

You can choose any format of cards to be the CENTER pile, so that kids can get review on the portion that they struggle with the most. They can focus on formats that they are more familiar using.

Variation:

You can start with only two formats until children are ready for the challenge of multiple formats. Simply make more copies of the format you want to use for the playing cards.

You can also start with the punctuation marks that your students are already familiar using. If you want, you can make extra copies of the cards to provide a larger deck with the limited cards. Then, as the students learn more types of punctuation add in the additional cards.

Instructions for the Punctuation Card Game:

Choose one format of cards for CENTER pile.

Use the other formats of cards for PLAYING cards. (More copies will create a longer game.)

To play: 2-4 players

• Place the CENTER cards face down in a pile.
• Deal the PLAYING cards equally among players and place them face down in a pile in front of each player.
• Decide the first player.
• Flip over one of the CENTER cards.
• In clockwise order, players flip one card at a time. When a PLAYING card is flipped that matches the CENTER card: SLAP-IT! (matches will be in many formats)
• The first player to slap the card takes the center pile of cards that have been played and adds them to the bottom of their own pile.
• Flip over another CENTER card and continue playing, this time matching the new card that has been flipped over.
• Game is finished when time is up or one player has all the PLAYING cards. Great partner or small group center!!