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Year 1 English Writing

Building Simple Sentences

Let's learn how to write sentences that make sense!

What is a Sentence?

A sentence is a group of words that makes sense. Every sentence needs three things:

☝️

Capital Letter

Every sentence starts with a big letter.

The cat sat.
💡

Makes Sense

The words must tell us something.

The cat sat on the mat.

Full Stop

Every sentence ends with a full stop.

The cat sat.

Remember!

A sentence is like a train. It needs an engine (capital letter) to start, carriages (words that make sense), and a stop signal (full stop) at the end!

🚆🚃🚃🚃🛑

Parts of a Sentence

A simple sentence has two main parts: who or what (the subject) and what they do (the verb).

The cat sits . 🐱
Who/What What they do
The dog runs . 🐶
Who/What What they do
The bird sings . 🐦
Who/What What they do
I like cake . 🍰
Who What they do What

Key Vocabulary

Sentence

A group of words that makes sense. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop.

Capital Letter

A big letter like A, B, C. We use one at the start of every sentence.

Full Stop

The little dot ( . ) at the end of a sentence. It tells us to stop.

Verb

A doing word! It tells us what someone does. Like run, jump, sit, eat.

Worked Examples

Let's check: is it a sentence or not?

YES - Sentence!

The frog can jump.

✓ Starts with a capital letter T
✓ Makes sense (we know what the frog does)
✓ Ends with a full stop .

NO - Not a sentence!

the dog

✗ No capital letter at the start
✗ Does not make sense (what about the dog?)
✗ No full stop

NO - Not a sentence!

jumped big very

✗ No capital letter
✗ The words do not make sense together
✗ No full stop

ALMOST - Let's fix it!

i like dogs

✗ Needs a capital letter at the start
✗ Needs a full stop at the end

Fixed: I like dogs.

Knowledge Check

Can you answer these questions? You can do it!

Question 1

Is this a sentence? "The fish can swim."

Question 2

Is this a sentence? "cat the on sat"

Question 3

What is missing from this sentence? "the sun is hot"

Question 4

Which is the doing word (verb) in this sentence? "The rabbit hops."

Question 5

Which one is a proper sentence?

What We Learned Today!

Year 1: Reading Simple Texts Year 1: Vocabulary Building