By Jodi Wolfe
Staff Writer

Pembroke Academy's cafeteria exploded with fun, colorful and some messy activities as part of the school's Grammarfest.

PUNCTUATION FISHER - Three Rivers School sixth-grader James Youmatz goes fishing for a comma question at Pembroke Academy's Grammarfest as Pembroke Academy ninth-grader Nick Gardiner, who helped create the carnival game, looks on. (Jodi Wolfe Photo)

The Grammarfest, held on Tuesday, March 29, is an educational carnival put on by about 80 ninth-graders for about 170 middle school students to participate in fun activities that challenge their grammar skills.

About five years ago, Pembroke Academy English teacher Holly Dunlea developed the concept of Grammarfest after she found a similar idea online created by a California English teacher.

The California teacher had his students teach grammar lessons and put up posters around their school, said Dunlea. However Dunlea decided that a grammar festival should be like a carnival and Pembroke Academy's Grammarfest was born. She later told the California teacher about her idea and he started doing it at his school, she said.

Dunlea decided to create a whole unit out of the Grammarfest where students would be experts in three areas of grammar by completing three activities based on three different topics. Students create board games on one grammar topic and give their class a lesson with a quiz on another topic. Finally, they get to create a carnival game for the festival on a different topic.

"I really like the whole process," she said. "The kids do a wonderful job on their board games."

Their activities give her something to relate to when working one-on-one with students.

"I can connect it with something they visually understand," she said.

Grammarfest has not taken place for the past three years as Dunlea has not taught ninth-grade English for the past three years. This year, she and Dee Treybig, a new ninthgrade English teacher, worked together to bring Grammarfest back to Pembroke Academy.

The students and teachers have been working to put the Grammarfest together since the middle of March. This year, both the fifth-graders and sixth-graders at Three Rivers participated in Grammarfest, where in the past it was just for sixth-graders.

The current ninth-graders were the sixth-graders who participated in the Grammarfest three years ago, said Treybig.

"So they (were) very excited to be the ones putting it on and they all have very positive memories of the event," she said.

At each game, the middle school students will received a brief introduction of the grammar topic and then play the game to get the grammar question. The students received a piece of candy for correct answers. One group of students purchased stuffed animals as prizes, said Treybig. Another rewarded students with face painting.

"They did a quiz," said Pembroke Academy ninth-grader Andrea Dall. "If they picked the right answer, they got a piece of candy and then they got their face painted."

Jonara Ladd and Hannah Poirier, students in Treybig's class, made a Wheel of Participles, where contestants spun the wheel and it landed on a participle. Then they had to see how many words they could come up with the proper ending.

For Ladd, the project helped her learn there are different participles for past and present tenses, she said.

"I thought it was just an ending, but I guess there's more to it," she said.

Poirier and Ladd agreed that making games is not as easy as it looks.

"It was really fun, "Poirier said. "You just have to put a lot of effort into it."

The two decided to follow their teacher's advice and keep their project simple and enjoyable.

Devin Clearly, Kayla Sheltery and Ashley Fuller gave their carnival game some springtime flair by having participants answer questions in a creative way.

Each player choose a sentence and then picked one of two conjunctions to finish the sentence. However, a participant must show his or her choice by digging three gummy worms out of a tub of chocolate pudding to spell out either A or B, corresponding to the two choices.

"It's funny to see them go 'ew'," said Clearly. "One little boy asked if there was really worms in it."

Creating the carnival game helps them refresh their basic grammar skills, she said.

Other games included the "Roll A Die Homonym Game," "Wheel of Nouns," "Gone Fishing," "Pluck a duck," "Twister," and a bean bag toss.

All of the students went above and beyond, said Treybig.

Creating the grammar games is different from just reading a textbook, said Treybig.

"To see the language in action is really exciting to these kids," she said. "It's critical thinking at a much higher level."

It also allows the students to fully synthesize the information, process it and put it out in an application, she said.

"This attracts kids who don't do a lot of work," said Dunlea.

Dunlea said her favorite part of the event is hearing all the students excited and talking about grammar.

"(That's) very exciting for an English teacher," she said.

Although she won't be teaching ninth-grade English again next year, Dunlea said she thinks the Grammarfest will continue and expand with Treybig's help.