Capitalization Rules - How to teach grammar in kindergarten and first grade - FREE ACTIVITIES
PRIMARY GRAMMAR UNIT 5 - CAPITALIZATION
We completed our grammar units 1-4, nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.
Who knew grammar could be so easy and fun right?
These four units give students such a solid foundation of basic sentence structure and parts of speech. Now that they have this strong framework of understanding, we move on to other grammar rules.
Unit 5 is all about basic capitalization rules.
This unit is intended for kindergarten - 3rd grade, so we do not cover every single rule, but we master the basic guidelines for how and when we capitalize letters in our language.
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I start all my grammar units with slideshows and concrete examples. Students love the real life pictures, and this helps them connect new subject material to things they already know.
This is an excellent way to activate their schema and build background knowledge. I have found teaching grammar in context always works better than teaching it as abstract “rules” to follow.
These slides cover the basic rules we will be learning about.
I then will revisit each slide (one per day) as we learn more in depth about each rule.
I refer to MINTS for the entire unit and this helps students remember the basic capitalization rules we focus on.
Each student can have their own anchor chart, or you can also display the charts on a bulletin board.
Then we will fill out these adorable mini books. They come in both color or black and white, and students trace the words and read the examples.
Now that we have an overview of capitalization rules using MINTS, we study each one more in depth for one or two lessons for each rule.
For lesson 3 and 4, we only focus on the rule of capitalizing the first letter in a sentence. This always seems to be the easiest for students to remember, and this is why I start with this rule.
You’ll love how the entire unit follows the same pattern of activities. You won’t waste time explaining directions or expectations.
Students know exactly what to do!
For each rule, we start by doing a fill in the bubble activity and then we complete the correct/rewrite the sentences page.
On the next lesson, we review the slide explaining the rule and complete a cut and paste activity (see below for lesson 4).
Now we are ready to move on to the next capitalization rule we learned about with MINTS in lessons 5 and 6.
As you can see, the activities and lesson follow the same pattern as capitalizing the first letter in a sentence. This makes it easier for you, and students appreciate knowing what to expect and they enjoy the routine.
Since proper nouns include both specific people and specific places, we spend a few extra lessons focusing on these two kinds of proper nouns that need to be capitalized. This is the letter N in MINTS (Names of people and places)
Now we are studying the days of the week, months of the year and holidays!
These are pretty straight forward for students, but it is important to remind them that it is only the main words in holidays and titles that get capitalized.
For example, Fourth of July, or The Wheels on the Bus. This can be a little confusing for students.
The capitalize the scrambled months activity is a fun puzzle for students. I put picture clues for each month, but I also included a differentiated version that has the first letter given to students if they need an extra hunt. They unscramble the letters to spell each month, and this is a fun activity that just provides extra practice in writing the months of the year correctly.
We have two more “rules” to cover about capitalizing letters, and then we get to play a fun game and practice our grammar skills with activities.
This last “rule” I teach is not included in our MINTS, but I include it for advanced kindergarten and first grade students, as well as second and third graders.
You can choose to skip these two lessons if they do not pertain to your kiddos.
You can always tailor my lessons to fit the needs of your students, so if you do not wish to teach about capitals inside quotation marks, then skip to lesson 17.
We have systematically worked our way through the capitalization “rules” and we practiced them all thoroughly.
Now we are ready to play some games and practice what we learned!
Before we play our towering capitalization block game, we use sentence strips to sort examples into two columns: correct and not correct.
You can do the whole group first, and then have students practice at literacy stations and small groups to check for understanding.
Just cut the sentences into strips and laminate for durability if you choose.
I love to use pocket charts, but you can also just have them sort on a table or desk.
These sentences cover all of the capitalization rules we just studied. You can also pick and choose specific sentences to review.
Now we get to play a really fun game! You can choose to play this for as many lessons as you wish, and it makes a good review for any time during the year.
There are so many ways to play this game. I feel that it works best in small groups, but you can also play whole group.
Students roll the dice and draw a color coded card. Everyone records the answer on their recording sheet because this keeps all students engaged even if it is not their turn.
If the person who drew the card writes the correct answer, they get to pull a block from the tower (they of course LOVE doing this and the kids are all watching intently.)
I love making grammar fun!
You do not need the block tower set if you do not wish to play the game this way. If you prefer, students can just take turns drawing cards, recording answers and earning points.
You can purchase these colorful blocks HERE
There are so many cards included (see below), so you can use this game over and over again.
We are at the end of our Capitalization Unit!
We conclude the unit with Captain Capitalization.
You can use this activity in many different ways, but I think it makes an excellent end of unit quiz on capitalization. Students find the errors, correct them and then rewrite the captain’s letter.
WATCH THIS QUICK VIDEO TO SEE THIS COMPLETE UNIT
PURCHASE THE ENTIRE CAPITALIZATION UNIT
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