Build a sentence fortune teller
Name: ...............................................................
Date: ..................................................................
Follow the instructions below to create your own sentence fortune teller.
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Build a sentence fortune teller
Teacher’s notes:
How to make the fortune teller:
1. Cut around the outside of the square.
2. Fold backwards along the diagonal dotted lines so that the words ‘shiny’, ‘faintly’, ‘whispered’,
‘guitar’, the parts of speech, and the syllables are underneath the square that is left. Try and
ensure none of the folds overlap.
3. Now fold along the remaining dotted lines, this time, folding forwards so that the parts of
speech and syllables are on the top of the square. Again, try and ensure none of the folds
overlap.
4. Now fold the square in half to form a rectangle. You should be left with the words ‘shiny’,
‘faintly’, ‘guitar’ and ‘whispered’ on the outside.
Playing the Game:
1. Put your two index fingers and your thumbs under the flaps of paper labelled ‘shiny’, ‘faintly’,
‘whispered’ and ‘guitar’.
2. Squeeze your fingers together so that the two outside corners come together in the middle with
the tops of your fingers and thumbs meet at the point.
3. Ask your partner to choose one of the showing words. If they choose ‘guitar’ they should
specify whether they will use ‘the’ or ‘a’. They should write down their word.
4. Ask you partner to count the vowels in their chosen word.
5. Move your fingers and thumbs in and out the number of vowels there are.
6. Ask your partner to choose from the four instructions. These could be a part of speech or a
number of syllables.
7. Your partner should think of a word which matches the instruction and write it down.
8. Lift the flap of the instruction chosen and give your partner their final instruction.
9. Now they must write a sentence using both of their words and following their instruction for
the sentence.
10. Play until a number of sentences have been created, then try to work your sentences into a
paragraph, adding new sentences to create cohesion.
Variation:
Children can make their own fortune tellers adding their own words and instructions. For example,
the template can be adapted for maths to include operations.
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Build a sentence fortune teller
Help sheet:
Noun
A person, place or thing.
Verb
An action or ‘doing’ word.
Adjective
A word that describes nouns (people, places or things).
Adverb
A word that describes verbs (actions). They often have a ‘ly’ ending.
Conjunction
Preposition
Syllable
A word that joins two sentences or clauses, for example, ‘and’, ‘so’,
‘because’, ‘but’, ‘although’, ‘whenever’ and ‘however’.
A word that tells you where or when something is in relation to something
else. This could be time (later, before, after) or position (behind, between,
on).
The chunks of sound in a word. All words have at least one syllable.
Three syllable word examples:












certainly
amazement
dangerous
easily
banana
bicycle
attention
everything
curious
distraction
exciting
alien
Four syllable word examples:











identical
television
vegetable
watermelon
information
ordinary
celebration
January
February
beautiful
alligator
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