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Commas in a List: A Market Adventure with Kit the Comma

Commas in a List: A Market Adventure with Kit the Comma

Learn how to use commas in a list, with 'and' before the last item. Fill baskets, fix market signs and write your own list sentences.

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What you'll learn

  • What a comma looks like and where it sits on the line
  • How a comma differs from a full stop and an apostrophe
  • How to use commas to separate the items in a list
  • Why 'and' replaces the comma before the last item
  • How to spot and fix comma mistakes in a list
  • How to punctuate a list sentence with a capital letter and full stop

Chapter by chapter

  1. Meet the comma: what a comma looks like Free to try

    Year 2 english · 1

  2. Commas to separate items in a list

    Year 2 english · 2 Year 2 english · 1

  3. Commas and 'and': where commas go in a list

    Year 2 english · 2

  4. Punctuate a list sentence: capital letters, commas and full stops

    Year 2 english · 1 Year 2 english · 2

  5. Comma challenge: commas in lists (8 questions)

What the chapters cover in the national curriculum in England:

  1. Year 2 english: Develop their understanding of the concepts set out in English appendix 2 by: learning how to use both familiar and new punctuation correctly, including full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks, question marks, commas for lists and apostrophes for contracted forms and the possessive (singular)
  2. Year 2 english: Punctuation: commas to separate items in a list

About this adventure

Commas in a List is an interactive game that teaches children aged 5–8 how to use commas to separate items in a list, matching the Year 2 English curriculum in England.

Kit, a talking comma, guides players around a street market. They find out that a comma is a dot with a tail that sits on the line, and learn to tell it apart from a full stop and an apostrophe. Next they put commas between the items in shopping lists and see that 'and' takes the place of the last comma. They then check signs for slips such as a comma after 'and', and build whole list sentences with a capital letter, commas and a full stop.

Every line is read aloud with captions on screen, and an eight-question challenge at the end checks what has stuck.

Questions and answers

How do you use commas in a list?

Put a comma between each item in the list, and use 'and' instead of a comma before the last item, as in 'I bought apples, pears, plums and grapes.' The sentence still starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop.

Do you put a comma before 'and' in a list?

In UK primary schools, children are usually taught not to put a comma before 'and' in a simple list, because 'and' already separates the last two items. Some writers add one, called the Oxford comma, but Year 2 pupils learn the version without it.

Do you need a comma in a list of only two things?

No, a list of two things just needs 'and', as in 'Tom has a cat and a dog.' Commas are needed when a list has three or more items, to keep each item separate.

What age is this commas game for?

It is made for children aged 5 to 8 and follows the Year 2 English curriculum in England, where commas for lists are first taught. Older children who still mix up their commas can use it as a quick refresher.

What does the commas game include and how long does it take?

It has four chapters and a final eight-question Comma Challenge, and takes about 35 minutes to play through. Each chapter opens and closes with a short animation, and children can choose any chapter from the market at any time.

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