Who or What? Compound Subjects Worksheet

A compound subject is what you get when two people, animals, or things do the very same thing in one sentence. Instead of writing two short sentences that repeat themselves, a writer joins the subjects with the word and and says it once. Learning to spot that pattern is the first step, and this Who or What? Compound Subjects Worksheet gives students plenty of practice doing exactly that. Students read a sentence, ask themselves who or what the sentence is about, and discover that the answer is not one thing but two. That small question is the whole skill, and it carries straight over into their own writing.

This 3rd grade grammar practice page works well as morning work, as a grammar center, or as a quick check after a lesson on subjects and predicates. Part A asks students to read four sentences and write the two subjects that make up each compound subject on the lines. Part B is the writing half: students read a pair of short sentences that repeat everything except the subject, then join them into one smooth sentence with a compound subject. Part C finishes with a picture prompt, so students compose a sentence of their own. Because the page moves from finding to joining to writing, it doubles nicely as a 2nd grade subject and predicate worksheet for students who need a gentler on-ramp, and as review for older writers.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 3 activities: 4 find-the-subjects sentences, 3 sentence-combining items, and 1 picture writing prompt

There are three reasons this resource helps students learn the skill so quickly. First, it separates finding a compound subject from building one, so students master recognition before they are asked to produce anything. Second, the sentence-combining section quietly teaches subject-verb agreement, because joining two subjects changes the verb: Logan rakes plus Delilah rakes becomes Logan and Delilah rake. Third, this Who or What? Compound Subjects Worksheet ends with an open picture prompt, which moves the skill out of a drill and into the student’s own writing where it belongs.

Teachers and parents can stretch the skill in a few easy ways. Try a sentence-combining relay, where one student reads a short sentence, a partner reads a matching one, and the pair races to say the joined sentence out loud. Hunt for compound subjects in a favorite read-aloud and jot each one on a sticky note. Play a quick round of “who or what?” at the dinner table, where everyone answers with two subjects. You can also have students revise a paragraph of their own writing and combine every repeated pair they find.

Related Resources

• Rewriting Compound Subjects Worksheet
• Compound Predicates Sentences Worksheet
• Subject Predicate Worksheet
• Subject and Predicate Song by Have Fun Teaching