Who doesn’t love a good ol’ Mad Libs worksheet? Growing up, my Mad Libs workbook kept rehearsing parts of speech fun (isn’t that how learning should be?)! Without them, learning a concept like types of nouns could seem a little dry. But nonetheless, learning these parts of speech are essential for constructing grammatically correct narratives.

Check out our latest resource - Christmas Mad Libs - and have fun building language skills and talking about Christmas!

Parts of Speech: Let’s Break it Down

In total, there are 8 parts of speech (though, different sources will may also include a 9th):

FREE printable version through our TPT site (link)

In summary, parts of speech are taught to increase language skills. Specifically, they are taught to strengthen the pillar of language known as syntax, which is also more commonly identified as grammar. They are pretty much essential for understanding the inner workings of sentence construction and developing adequate literacy skills (aka: skills relating to reading and writing) as well. For English language learners or learners of another language, teaching this grammatical structure is necessary to communicate clearly and effectively. Let’s compare the grammatical structure of two sentences with the same meaning: one in English and one in Spanish.

English: “I have a black (adjective) dog (noun).”

Spanish: “Tengo un perro (noun) negro (adjective).”

Both sentences deliver the same exact meaning; however, the grammar of each sentence is slightly different for each language. It is also important to note that, if you remove the two parts of speech (adjective and noun) from each sentence, the sentences are void of meaning. “I have…” ??? The combination of the parts of speech within a sentence give the sentence contextual building blocks for delivering meaning to the message.

We hope you enjoyed our Christmas Mad Libs and additional details about the 8 major parts of speech. Remember you can access the Mad Libs PDF through our Teachers Pay Teachers store as well as the parts of speech infographic.

Happy Holidays from our Communication Community family!