Conjunctions: Coordinating

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

A conjunction is a word that joins two or more sentences together.

This lesson focuses on a special type of conjunction called a coordinating conjunction. A coordinating conjunction can be used to combine words, phrases, and sentences. There are seven coordinating conjunctions you will learn about in this lesson.

Read the list of coordinating conjunctions below:

• for
• and
• nor
• but
• or
• yet
• so

If you look at each letter that begins each word, you will see the words "FAN BOYS." You can use this to help you remember each of the seven coordinating conjunctions found in this lesson. You will see lots of commas (,) in this lesson. Every time you see a comma, you should do a short pause when you are reading.

You will look at examples of each coordinating conjunction being used in a sentence. The coordinating conjunction in each sentence will be bold. Read all the sentences aloud to your parent or teacher:

• I go swimming every day, for I love getting exercise.

• She painted with blue and orange.

• My dog loves his green ball, red ball, and colorful ball.

• I don’t like broccoli, nor do I like spinach.

• I wanted to go to the park, but it was getting late.

• Would you like cereal or toast for breakfast?

• The temperature outside is very hot, yet we still went outside to play!

• I am allergic to peanuts, so I can’t eat peanut butter and jelly.

Did you read all the examples aloud to your parent or teacher? If so, great work! If not, go back and read the examples.

As you could see, many of the examples included a comma (,). Whenever you see a comma, you should do a brief pause when reading aloud. Most coordinating conjunctions have a comma before them in a sentence. For example, there will always be a comma before "for," "nor," "but," "yet," and "so."

The words "and" and "or" will have a comma before them if you create a list of three or more things. You will need to use a comma after each thing on the list. For example, "White rice, brown rice, or yellow rice?" Another example is, "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet are all colors in the rainbow."

You have seen many examples of coordinating conjunctions being used in sentences. In the Got It? section, you will practice using coordinating conjunctions by playing a game.