Pangrams: a no prep fun activity for writing enrichment

Getting kids to think outside the box and participate in real enrichment can be hard. It can be challenging to find activities that are fun, quick, and low prep. Well, friends: look no further. Pangrams to the rescue!

A pangram is a sentence that uses all the letters in the English alphabet. It's a simple concept, but it can actually be pretty challenging to complete. Think about it: there are only so many ways that you can incorporate words with the letters “q” and “z” into a sentence! This activity is for a small or large group of kids who enjoy playing with words. For extra bonus teaching points, let your students use a thesaurus or dictionary to help them. It's a great way to help kids expand their word choice, deepen knowledge of spelling principles, and explore sentence structure. 

What You Need:

• paper
• pen/pencil
• Thesaurus and/or dictionary (optional)

What You Do:

1. Show the students the following example of a common pangram: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
2. Explain that a pangram uses all of the letters in the English language in a single sentence. At this point, the kids will probably underestimate how difficult writing a pangram can be. They’ll find out soon!
3. Challenge the kids to write their own pangram! Once they get the hang of it, they can compete to see who can write the shortest pangram that makes sense. Students can work on their own, but this activity really lends itself to collaboration and is best in partners or small groups. If kids as they get stuck, you can help them by giving ideas for words they can add to their pangram in order to incorporate some of the less common letters of the alphabet.
4. Award the kid whose pangram has the fewest letters, the kid whose pangram has the fewest words, and the kid whose pangram makes the most logical sense.

You can also extend this activity and have your students make pangram posters using construction paper and markers. They can write their pangram in marker along the bottom of the poster, and then illustrate the pangram on the rest of the poster board.

If you need more fun activities for spelling and writing, check out this list of activities from education.com. I always find great ideas, worksheets, and resources to help my kiddos there!