Pacing Guide for Foundational Grammar

The following suggested calendar assumes a traditional 36-week school year. This calendar spaces out the grammar instruction throughout the year. This calendar allows you to teach a major grammar concept every other week after the first week of school. 

Our writing units also include suggestions for grammar lessons you can incorporate into each unit. 

First 9 weeks: focus on parts of speech

Week 1

• First-day-of-school activity
• Optional: give students multiple choice diagnostic test
• Teach Vivid Verbs slides lesson on day 3 of class (link to freebie)
• Use hands-on verbs game on day 4 of class (link to freebie)
• Teach Strong Nouns Google Slides lesson  on day 4 of class. 
• On day 5 of class, assign one quick write writing prompt on verbs or nouns

If you don’t have time to teach much (or any) grammar this week, do verbs and nouns on week two. 

Week 2

Assign 1-2 quick writes this week for practice of the previous week’s grammar concepts, or teach verbs and nouns this week if the first week of school was too hectic to have both grammar lessons.

Week 3

• Teach Well-Placed Adjectives Google Slides lesson
• Assign 1-2 quick writes for adjectives as bell ringers later in the week or for HW

Week 4

• Teach Well-Placed Adverbs this week
• Assign 1-2 quick writes for adverbs later in the week as bell ringers or HW

Week 5

Optional: give adjectives and adverbs quiz this week

Week 6

Have students complete 2-3 quick writes for combining adjectives and adverbs this week as bell ringers

Week 7

• Do parts of speech review game
• Give parts of speech quiz 

Second Nine Weeks: focus on subjects, predicates, pronouns, agreement, and review capitalization. 

Week 8

Introduce Better Bell Ringers, and have students complete at least 2-3 bell ringers this week (or do one each day)

Week 9

Teach subjects and predicates Google Slides lesson

Week 10

• Assign a quick write on subjects and predicates for review some time this week.
• Teach subject/verb agreement Google slides lesson

Week 11

• Teach pronoun/antecedent agreement lesson
• Assign a pronoun/antecedent quick write for HW or a bell ringer
• Continue to give students bell ringers from 50 Bell Ringers set 1 so students are continually reviewing the parts of speech in their writing

Week 12

• Do Agreement Hands-On Game
• Do Agreement Quiz

Week 13 

No grammar lessons this week, but have student do bell ringers to continue to work on writing craft. 

Week 14

• Capitalization lesson
• Assign bell ringers throughout the week

Week 15

Capitalization quiz

Weeks 16

No grammar this week

Week 17

Do fill-in-the-blank activities for review and fun.

Week 18

No grammar lessons this week

Third Nine Weeks: Focus on clauses and sentence types

Week 19

Teach Independent and Subordinate Clauses Lesson (Google Slides lesson)

Week 20

• No new grammar lessons this week
• Use 50 Bell Ringers for review and practice several days this week

Week 21

• Teach Sentence Types Google Slides lesson
• One day this week, assign a quick write for simple sentences 

Week 22

Have students complete the 3 remaining quick writes for sentence types

Week 23

Do sentence types game (separate sentence types)

Give clauses and sentence types quiz

Week 24

• No new grammar lessons this week
• Use 50 Bell Ringers for review and practice each day

Week 25

• Teach Fragments Google Slides lesson
• Assign fragments quick write for HW or as a bell ringer

Week 26

Fragments quiz

Week 27

Give style-minded revision assignment.

Fourth Nine Weeks: Focus on active and passive voice and practice writing with grammar concepts

Week 28

Teach Active and Passive Google slides lesson

Week 29

Do Active and Passive Voice Hands-on Game

Week 30

• Assign an active and passive voice quick write

Do active and passive voice quiz

Week 31

Do possession and apostrophes lesson

Week 32

Do possession quiz

Week 33

Give End-of-The-Year Reflection assignment

Week 34

No grammar this week

Week 35

Do end of the year review for Grammar and Literature review lesson

Week 36

No grammar this week! Well done—you made it through the year!