Day 5- #SOL16: I Missed National Grammar Day!

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

I'm a little disappointed because I learned that today is National Grammar Day too late! (Disclaimer: As I write this post, it is March 4th. Not March 5th.) You can read more about National Grammar Day here. I found out about through some favorite twitter friends. There are some very funny tweets to be found using the #GrammarDay hashtag.

One of my favorite nerdy pastimes is thinking about how to teach grammar in meaningful, engaging, and even funny ways. As someone pointed out on Twitter, March Fourth is the only day of the year that is a command. Think of the teaching possibilities that lie within the Common Core Language Standards:

Homophones and frequently misused words: Look at what happens when we remove the "u". The date become a command, just like that.  It's not quite as impactful and important as the comma in Let's eat, Grandma, but one letter really makes a difference.

Commas in Dates: Today, March 4, 2016, would have been a perfect day to review the comma that belongs after the 4, because students would have been intrigued to think about why we should march forth on March 4, 2016.

Capitalization of months: No capital needed if the command is to march forth, but you better have a capital M if you are talking about March 4th.

I definitely need to remember to celebrate March 4, 2017. It's a day to mark on the calendar with as much enthusiasm for linguists as Pi Day (3/14) is marked for mathematicians.

Maybe we can have a missed March Forth Day on March 7!

Cheers,