Learning parts of speech is an important part of any student's school career. Unfortunately, many students finish their education without a firm grasp on the difference between an adjective and an adverb, or even between a noun and a verb. A teacher can give students a fun way of practicing recognition of different parts of speech by asking the students to take part in a game of MadLibs. In MadLibs, the teacher has a prepared story with blank spaces for different kinds of words. The students will provide words to fill in the blanks, but without knowing the story.

Here is the beginning of a story:

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood went for a walk _________ the ________. She was carrying a basket filled with ____________ to take to her grandmother. Her grandmother was a _________ _________ _____________. But she really like to visit with her granddaughter. But unknown to Little Red Riding Hood, there was a ___________ living in the _________, and he was _________ _______.

Before doing the activity with the class, the teacher must make note of the parts of speech (and, in the case of nouns, whether they are plural or singular). So, for the story shown above, the teacher would make the following list:

1. preposition
2. noun
3. plural noun
4. adverb
5. adjective
6. singular noun
7. singular noun
8. noun
9. adverb
10. adjective

The teacher now begins the activity by asking each student to write on a sheet of paper the numbers 1 through ten. Next the teacher tells the students to write a preposition next to the number 1, a noun next to the number 2, and so on.

When all the students have finished, the teacher begins reading the story, pausing at each blank, and pointing at a different student to fill in the blank from their paper. Of course, the results can be downright silly--for example:

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood went for a walk under the ocean. She was carrying a basket filled with beetles to take to her grandmother. Her grandmother was a violently morbid anteater. But she really like to visit with her granddaughter. But unknown to Little Red Riding Hood, there was a smog living in the soda bottle, and he was quietly insane.

The story is absolutely ridiculous, and makes no sense, but the children love it. In the process of writing the story, the students will have had a fun time, and will have practiced recognizing parts of speech.