Types of Sentences Teaching Resources
Teach the types of sentences in your English classes with printable worksheets, writing activities and more teacher-created and curriculum-aligned teaching resources!
Our teacher team has created this extensive collection of teaching resources to help students understand how to create various sentence types from simple to compound-complex and use the proper punctuation. Aligned to the Australian National curriculum, the English collection includes editable worksheets and teaching presentations and more to save teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this grammar collection has been carefully reviewed and curated by our team. That means it's ready to use in the classroom! You'll even find editable resources, plus differentiated options.
New to teaching sentence types, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team!
What Are the 4 Types of Sentences?
So what types of sentences do kids typically learn about in primary school, and why do they matter? It's often said there are four basic types, and it's technically true. But the four types you're teaching will depend on the year level you're teaching!
Sentence Types for Early Years
Students in Year 1 will typically learn one batch of sentence types, broken out by their function and punctuation type.
Declarative Sentences
Declarative sentences make statements or express facts, opinions, or information. This sentence type also ends with a period.
Interrogative Sentences
An interrogative sentences asks questions. They end with a question mark and start with either an auxiliary verb or one of the following question words:
- What
- When
- Why
- Where
- Who
- How
Imperative Sentences
An imperative sentence gives commands, instructions, or requests. They can be phrased in a way that sounds polite or forceful. Imperative sentences usually lack a subject because the pronoun you is implied.
Exclamatory Sentences
The final type of sentence taught at this grade level is exclamatory. These convey strong emotions, surprise, excitement or emphasis. They often begin with "What" or "How" and end with an exclamation mark.
Sentence Types for Middle and Upper Years
Middle and upper year students learn more complex sentence types, including a type that's literally named complex!
Simple Sentence
A simple sentence contains one independent clause and expresses a complete thought.
A good starting point for teaching sentence types, these sentences all contain a subject and a predicate, and they provide the foundation for understanding the basic structure of a sentence.
Compound Sentence
Compound sentences contain two or more independent clauses, and a coordinating conjunction joins them together. This type offers an entrance into discussing the different comma rules, as compound sentences always need a comma inserted before the conjunction.
Teaching compound sentences also allows students to explore relationships between ideas by connecting two or more independent clauses, and expressing contrasting, additive or causal relationships.
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
This type not only helps students better understand the difference between independent and dependent clauses, but it can help kids better understand subordination. With complex sentences, students learn to express cause and effect and conditionality in their writing.
Compound-Complex Sentence
A sentence that contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause is considered a compound-complex sentence.
These help our students express more intricate relationships between ideas.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23 slide editable PowerPoint template which introduces the attributes of simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Posters
Use these posters to show your students the attributes that make up simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Plus Plan
Making Sentences – Cut and Paste Worksheets
A set of 10 cut and paste worksheets for making short sentences.
- Plus Plan
Types of Sentences Posters
A set of 7 posters outlining the structure of various types of sentences.
- Free Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Sort
Practise reading and identifying simple, compound and complex sentences with this sorting activity.
- Plus Plan
Simple and Compound - Roll a Sentence Dice Game
Play a ‘Roll-a-Sentence’ dice game to help your students practise writing simple and compound sentences.
- Plus Plan
Sentence Trains - Sentence Building Activity
Teach your year 1 students about sentence types and punctuation with Sentence Trains, a fun Sentence Building Activity.
- Plus Plan
Punctuation & Sentence Types Worksheets (1-2)
Identify the four types of sentences and their punctuation marks with a printable set of Punctuation & Sentence Type Worksheets for Grade 1 and Grade 2.
- Plus Plan
Writing Compound Sentences with Conjunctions Worksheet
Assign this worksheet to allow students to practise using coordinating conjunctions to create compound sentences.
- Plus Plan
Roll and Write – Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences
An interactive activity to help students practise writing simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Free Plan
Statement, Question, Command, Explanation – Match Up Cards
Teach younger students about the four types of sentences with a printable sentence types matching activity.
- Plus Plan
Statement, Question, Command & Exclamation Sentences PowerPoint
Introduce statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with an interactive teaching slide deck.
- Plus Plan
Building Strong Sentences Teaching Presentation
Share this 15-slide teaching presentation with your students to help them understand the key grammar concepts of compound sentences,coordinating conjunctions and clauses.
- Plus Plan
SPLAT! Types of Sentences Card Game (Year 1-2)
Play SPLAT!, a types of sentences game to help your students learn to identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences
- Plus Plan
Super Sentence Game - Statement, Command, Exclamation & Question
Turn sentence structure practice into an exciting game with the Super Sentence Game for Year 1 and 2.
- Plus Plan
Types of Sentences Posters - Large Text
A set of 7 posters outlining the structure of various types of sentences.
- Plus Plan
Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation – Poster
Discover the features of statement, question, command, and exclamation sentences with a printable Types of Sentences poster.
- Plus Plan
Types of Sentences - Sentence Strips Activity Pack
Use our Sentence Types - Sentence Strip Activity pack to teach your students about statements, commands, questions, and exclamation sentences.
- Plus Plan
Sentence Saga Literacy Activity (Silly Sentences)
Words and punctuation marks are jumbled everywhere. It’s your task to combine them into sentences that make sense!
- Plus Plan
Finish It! - End Punctuation Task Cards (1-2)
Practise adding end marks to sentences with a printable set of Punctuation Task Cards for Year 1 and 2.
- Plus Plan
Sentence Types Quiz (Year 1)
Assess your students ability to identify types of sentences and their matching punctuation with a printable Sentence Types Quiz for Year 1.
- Plus Plan
Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation Cut and Paste Worksheet
Identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with a Types of Sentences Cut and Paste worksheet for Year 2.
- Free Plan
4 Types of Sentences Flipbook
Create a helpful types of sentences flipbook with our Differentiated 4 Kinds of Sentences foldable graphic organisers.
- Plus Plan
Emoji Sentence Sorting Activity (Year 1-2)
Teach your students about statement, command, exclamation, and question sentences with our Emoji Sentence sorting activity.
- Free Plan
Simple Sentence Dominoes (Version 1)
A set of 30 dominoes to assist younger students with building simple sentences.
- Plus Plan
Cupid's Compound Sentences Activity - Interactive Game
Build some sweet sentence writing skills using a fun Valentine’s Day Compound Sentence activity.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Activity Printables - Types of Sentences Sort
Help your students identify the four types of sentences with a printable Christmas sorting activity on declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences.
- Plus Plan
Simple Sentence Dominoes (Version 3)
A set of 30 dominoes to assist younger students with building simple sentences.
- Plus Plan
Year 1 Punctuation - Christmas Task Cards
Use these Year 1 Punctuation activity cards to practice using ending punctuation and identifying declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences.
- Plus Plan
Simple Sentence Dominoes (Version 2)
A set of 30 dominoes to assist younger students with building simple sentences.