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From Boring to Exciting: Transforming Capital and End Mark Lessons in Your Classroom

Grammar, Writing September 11, 2023

Photo of end mark interactive anchor chart for capital and end mark lessons.

As educators, we understand the importance of equipping young learners with essential writing skills right from the start. Capital and end mark lessons with the focus on the correct use of capitals and end marks, such as periods, question marks, and exclamation points, lays the foundation for effective communication. However, capital and end mark lessons to elementary students can sometimes be a daunting and boring task. Traditional methods that involve rote memorization and worksheets may not always captivate their attention or foster a genuine understanding of the topic. And let’s be honest, kids often just forget to use them.

In this blog post, we dive into a collection of engaging techniques to help teachers make learning about capitals and end marks an enjoyable experience for their young students. So, let’s get started and discover how we can turn capitals and end mark lessons into an exciting adventure that ignites a love for language and empowers our young writers to communicate with confidence!

Books

Photo of book covers for The Day Punctuation Came to Town and The Upper Case Trouble in Capital City.

Mentor texts and picture book are always a fun way to introduce and/or review skills. Here are two fun books that focus on capitalization and end punctuation.

Please note Amazon affiliate links are included in this post for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Videos

Brainpop Jr. has a great video about using capitals and another one about using end marks. I love using Brainpop when I can because it helps focus on the skills in a different way.

Interactive Anchor Chart

I love using interactive anchor charts and creating anchor charts for grammar skills! For capitals, we created a chart where we went over specific times you would need to use capital and then created examples that matched those specifics.

For end marks, I love to use an interactive anchor chart. We had already gone over the three types of end marks and had watched the Brainpop and read a book. For the chart, I gave students a different color sticky that would correlate to the type of sentence they would need to write. Students then either created a statement, question, or exclamatory sentence and then added it to our chart. This was a great time to not only discuss end marks, but also review using capitals in the correct places and what makes a complete sentence. See the video above for more.

Photo of end marks interactive anchor chart with sticky notes.

Group Hunt – Editing Writing

As I mentioned in the introduction, some kids just seem to be allergic to capitals and end marks. I know we talk about them ad nauseam and I remind them to use them, but some students still struggle. Another practice strategy is to have students work with a partner or a group to edit a piece with mistakes.

I’ve written one piece where there are capitals in all the wrong places and another piece where there are no end marks. Students then work with their partner or group to figure out how to fix the errors to make the sentences correct and readable. Once time is up, students come down to the carpet and help me correct it on the screen.

Photo of story with capitalization errors for the kids to fix.

Friday Fix It – Morning Message

Photo of morning message on white board with sentence for students to correct.

I love incorporating grammar skills into my Morning Meeting. A few years ago I started doing a routine on Fridays – where every Friday – the message was a Friday Fix It. Student would be given a sticky note and have to re-write the sentence correctly on it and then add it to the message board. Then, during Morning Meeting we would go over it as a class. This is a great way to throw in a variety of different grammar and spelling skills.

Grammar Fix It – Capitals and End Marks

Photo of Fix It Recording sheet and two teal colored grammar task cards on a pink background.

Since I’ve noticed over the years that capitals and end marks are always a struggle, I decided to create a resource to help students practice. For this resource, there are 8 task cards and students have to fix the errors and re-write the sentence correctly on their recording sheet. In this activity, there is an option for capitals only, end marks only, and both capitals and end marks. I’ve used this as an Around the Room Activity, in stations, and also for independent practice.

Grab this resource here:

Printable Grammar Fix It – Capitals and End Marks

Digital Grammar Fix It – Capitals and End Marks

Get a FREE Capital and End Marks Practice Activity

Photo of blue task card on a desk with a recording sheet and pencil.

Grab a FREE Capitalization Practice Activity. These Around the Room Task Cards are a fun and engaging way to help your students practice this grammar skill. Grab the FREEBIE >>> HERE.

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8 Favorite Writing Mentor Texts

Writing May 17, 2022

Blog header for favorite writing mentor text.

I love using a good picture book to start any lesson – reading, writing, and math! Today I’m going to share with you my 8 Favorite Writing Mentor Texts.

Please note Amazon affiliate links are included in this post for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Letter Writing:

Photo of mentor text for writing letters

Dear Mrs. LaRue – Letters from Obedience School – This book is a fun way for students to see how letters are written and the letter writing format. Ike writes letters to his owner to share how “bad” it is at obedience school. These letters are fun and engaging and help show students what to include in a typical letter.
The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters – I loved this book as a kid and love to use it at the beginning of my letter writing unit. The Jolly Postman takes us on a journey as he delivers letters and mail to various people – Cinderella, The Giant, Witch from Hansel and Gretel. As he delivers the mail we get to open the envelopes at each address and see what is inside. Although all of the mail is not letters, there are multiple letter examples in there and this is a fun way to start letter writing.

Opinion Writing:

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing – First and foremost, this book is hilarious and it’s also great to teach opinion writing. This book provides a variety of scenarios where animals are wearing clothes. Students can then write their own opinions about whether or not animals should wear clothing.
Earrings – In this story, the main character really wants earrings and is trying to persuade her parents to let her get them. This is a great opinion discussion and students can debate about whether or not she should get earrings.
I Wanna Iguana – The little boy in this story wants a pet iguana and is trying to convince his parents! Another great persuasive story where students can write their opinions and back it up with reasons.

Narrative Writing:

Poor Pluto – Great book written by an actual 3rd grade class. This is perfect to use when your students are getting ready to publish their work.
Rocket Writes a Story – This book is perfect for what to do when a writer gets stuck! In this book, Rocket looks to words to help inspire him and gets ideas for his story from his friends.
The Best Story – This story is great for introducing your narrative writing unit. The main character tries to write all of these creative, adventurous stories to get the “best story.” She learns that the best stories are ones that come from the heart and are about your own life.

Click the book links above to check them out and add them to your classroom library!

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Teaching Opinion Writing

Writing August 3, 2020

Blog Header for Teaching Opinion Writing. Picture of digital opinion writing prompt.

Opinion writing is one of my favorite writing units to teach. There are so many great mentor texts you can read and great activities that also go along with writing opinions. This skill is important for kids to work on because they often have no problem sharing their opinion, but can struggle to back it up with reasons why. Often when we first start the unit, students tell me that “I just like it,” or “it’s my favorite because.” Through literature, engaging activities, and prompts we can help support students with writing their opinions.

Today I will share some ideas to help support students writing their opinion, mentor texts, activities, and writing prompt ideas.

Sentence Stem

Sentence stems can be a great way to scaffold learning. Often time students have ideas about what they want to say, but struggle with the right way to get the words out. I like to use the following sentence stems with my students for opinion writing…

I like _____ because _______.

My favorite ______ is ______ because _______.

In addition to going over the sentence stems as a class, I will often leave them up on the board so students can refer back to them later or write them on an anchor chart.

Opinion Writing Book Ideas

Affiliate links are included for your convenience.

I absolutely love these books I’m sharing with you today! These books are fun and engaging and can provide great opinion writing activities.

Earrings! by Judith Viorst

Earrings! is a great book to read when teaching opinion writing. In this story, the girl is trying to convince her parents why she should be able to get earrings. Afterwards, have your students write their opinion about whether or not she should be able to get earrings and why.

I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff

I Wanna Iguana is about a boy who is trying to convince his parents that he should be able to get a pet iguana. Most kids will relate to this story since many of them have asked for a pet before too. After reading, you could have students write about whether or not the boy should get an iguana or why. You could also have students write about a pet they want and provide reasons why.

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett

Book Cover for Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing is a funny book about animals in clothes that don’t quite work. After reading students can write their response – Should animals wear clothing? Why or why not?

Teaching/Activity Ideas…

Food Opinions

Anytime you can bring food into a lesson kids will love it! There are many different food items you could bring in for students to write opinions about. You could bring in two different fruits. Each student tries both fruits and writes their opinion about which one they like better.

One of my favorite activities is Oreo Opinions. There are many different flavors of Oreos and who doesn’t like trying cookies in class! Bring in two different flavors, have your students taste test them, and pick which one they like best. They they write their opinion for their favorite flavor of Oreo.

Circle Maps

I’ve used Thinking Maps at past schools and the circle map graphic organizer works well with Opinion Writing. In the middle circle students write their opinion. Then, in the outer circle, students write the reasons supporting their opinion.

Opinion Writing Prompts

There are so many different prompts you can provide students to help them write their opinion. Students can write about their favorite food, favorite pet, and more. I actually have some prompts already created for you in my TPT store. These are great during your opinion unit, for early finishers, or as a literacy station or literacy center activity.

Opinion Writing Cards and Digital Version

This resource (digital and printable) includes 30 different writing prompts to help students practice writing and supporting their opinions.

Printable Opinion Writing Prompt Cards

Digital Opinion Writing Prompt Cards

Would You Rather Writing Prompts and Digital Version

The Would You Rather prompt (digital and printable) let students choose which option they would prefer and then write why. There are more serious prompts in here, but also a lot of silly ones too! Includes 60 different prompts ready to go!

Printable Would You Rather Prompts

Digital Would You Rather Prompts

I hope you found these ideas helpful! I enjoy teaching this unit every year and love using the books and activities I shared today to teach opinion writing.

Long Pin for Teaching Opinion Writing. Picture of digital opinion writing prompt.

Writing Workshop Round-Up

Writing, Writing Workshop July 29, 2019

Blog header - picture of student writing and picture of Writing Workshop bins with the stages of writing.

Writing Workshop is a wonderful way to teach writing in your classroom. My favorite part about it is the focus is on kids actually writing and the majority of the lesson is focused on that. I’ve written a number of blog posts about how I set up Writing Workshop and I wanted to share them with you in one place!

Writing Workshop Blog Posts

Why Writing Workshop – This post explains some of the positive benefits of using the workshop model for writing in your classroom.
Set-Up – Set-up is made easier with these ideas and tips! Includes a few different ways you could set-up the materials for writer’s workshop in your classroom.
Format – The workshop has a very consistent format. Each workshop time includes: mini-lesson, time for kids to write, conferencing, and share.
Mini-Lessons – Ideas for different mini-lessons you could use during writer’s workshop. Also includes a FREE planning page.
Teaching Editing – Editing is easier for students with these ideas! Also see the FREE checklist for editing at the bottom of this post.
Publishing – This is always my students favorite part of the process! They love publishing their pieces and sharing them with the class.
Spotlight Bulletin Board – Check out this post to see how I spotlight student writing based on our specific mini-lesson skills.
Conference Schedule – Conferring with students is so much easier if you have a schedule to go by!

FREE Writing Checklists

To make your life easier I have a FREE set of writing checklists for your students to use! These are geared towards the primary grades and include 8 different checklists – so you’ll be able to differentiate based on what you’re teaching and your students’ needs. Grab your writing checklists HERE.

Long pin for blog post. Includes picture of student writing.

Pizzeria Room Transformation

Writing, Math, Reading November 19, 2018

Today I’m excited to share my second room transformation with you! This one was a Pizzeria Room Transformation. Our pizzeria was called Village Pizzeria. I’m going to take you through the decor and the different activities that we did during the day.

Decorations and Room Set-Up:

Here you can see the set-up with the lights out. The tablecloths are from the dollar store, the battery candles are actually from my wedding registry, and my teaching assistant made the flowers out of tissue paper. On the Smart Board I had a photo of a pizzeria and played Italian music to help set the mood. They have tons of great options for this on YouTube!

On the back bulletin board my teaching assistant made the cute banner of pizzas. We also found pizza and pizzeria pictures online and hung them on the walls.

My teaching assistant also traced and made this sign from one we found online. We used this as a backdrop to take each student’s photo with their chef hat and mustache that you will see later in the post.

Costume and Staff Roles Idea:

For the pizzeria room transformation I decided to be the server. Since I wasn’t a teacher that day, I decided to have the kids call me Giana and that would be my pizzeria server name. I wore a name tag, had a server apron, and glasses at times. My teaching assistant dressed up as a chef with a chef hat and apron. We also got my assistant principal involved. She helped with the first activity below. She was the owner of the pizzeria and her name was Barbara. She dressed up, had an Italian accent, and had a lot of fun with her role in our pizzeria!

Opinion Writing Activity:

We have been working on opinion writing in class and I wanted to tie that in to the pizzeria room transformation. “Barbara,” our owner (our assistant principal) came in and asked them if they would help taste test two different Oreo’s to see which should be added to her menu. The kids were excited to do this and enjoyed trying both. I was surprised because red velvet won and I was sure that many of them would go for the peanut butter. After testing both cookies they wrote their opinion and had to give reasons to support the cookie they picked.

Menu Math:

I created pizzeria menus that we used for our math lesson. I also created differentiated story problems for three different groups to work on. All story problems fit around the menu theme and definitely made them think outside the box. My goal was to push all of my students/customers and these problems did just that. They loved choosing their own items from the menu for question 2 and did a great job showing work for how they got their answers.

Above and below you can see the three different story problem pages. As you can see they are similar, but differentiated to meet all of my learners.

Book Tasting:

The book tasting was another perfect event for our room transformation. After lunch the kids came back in and I had it all set-up. There were six tables and three different genres – fairy tale, fiction, and nonfiction. Students were assigned as a specific seat by the hostess (me) and then given directions. They had about 5 minutes to “taste” their book and write the title and genre. On the page they also could give their book a rating with stars. A 5 star book was a fantastic book that they wanted to read again and a 1 star book was one that they were not interested in. They were very honest with their reviews and also had a chance to read books from a variety of genres. Below you’ll see the book tasting form.

Making a Mini Pizza:

Next came the part the kids had been waiting all day for! Each student got to make their own mini pizza. We used english muffins, marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperonis. Our chef (my teaching assistant) did a demo cooking lesson and then each child got to make their own mini pizza. They wore the cute chef hats pictured below and also each got a mustache. I took pictures of them in front of the backdrop with both props and they turned out adorable!

Writing a How To:

After creating their own mini pizza, each child wrote their own “how to” explaining how to make a mini pizza. They loved that they got to write down their recipe so they could make them again at home.

All in all it was a wonderful day and the second room transformation of the year was a success! Stay tuned for future transformations and ideas!

Pizzeria Resource

You can grab these activities in my TPT store >>> HERE.

Common vs. Proper Nouns

Language, Writing November 14, 2018

Being back in first grade this year I’ve had to revamp the way I teach grammar and go back to the very introductory steps of teaching these skills. Second graders had some background knowledge on nouns, verbs, etc., but first graders are just starting out!

With teaching nouns, the first week we just focused on common nouns. We created an anchor chart together, made lists of common nouns, sorted nouns by type, and more.

The second week we added in proper nouns and kids had to understand the difference between the two. In addition to watching a Brainpop Jr. video and creating anchor charts, I also created this sort.

I also had students do the below activity which turned out to be easy and engaging…

Common vs. Proper Nouns Sort

To start off, I put common nouns and proper nouns written on index cards in a bucket. For example, cat, student, school, McDonald’s, Legos, etc. Students then got to pick out a card. They had to draw a picture to represent their nouns (I made sure it was nouns they would be familiar with) and then bring the card down to the carpet.

Once everyone was finished we took each card and sorted it one by one together into the correct category. They did a great job and their pictures were pretty cute too!

Just wanted to share this simple activity. If you are looking for more introductory noun practice, check out my Common Noun Task Cards below… They can be found in my TPT Store – Team J’s Classroom Fun.

Football Room Transformation

Math, Reading, Writing October 29, 2018

So today I am super excited to share with you my room transformation that I did a few weeks ago. For my first room transformation this year I decided to do a football theme. What started out as just a transformation for a math review turned into why not make the whole day football themed! Go big or go home – right?? So this room transformation took on a life of it’s own and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! In this blog post I’ll take you through the decorations and different events of the day. I had a blast and my kids had a blast! It was probably one of the best days we’ve had this school year so far.

Room Transformation Info:

For the room transformation I got items from Amazon, Party City, and we made many of them too. The football backdrop and football runner were from Party City. My ref shirt came from Amazon. I printed and made the football logos. My teaching aide made the tablecloths with a football stamp and the other football signs. The decorations definitely helped set the mood!

Each child had their picture taken in front of the backdrop. The posed with the football. I so wish I could show you the pictures because some of them took it rather seriously!

If I Were a Football Player Page:

During morning meeting, which I called a team meeting, we discussed some of the questions on the page above. Students then got to create their football name, pick their number, decide the team name, mascot, etc. They had fun being creative and coming up with some interesting mascots and names!

Jersey Design:

Next students got to design their own jerseys. I showed them a few examples of real NFL and college jerseys and then they got to work. They used their team colors and number on the jersey. The t-shirt page was from Heather Toomey.

Football Math Review Game:

When students came back from PE I had the game set-up for them. I used a long football yard-line table runner on the floor and that was how we showed we each team earned a point (10 yards) for each correct question. When they came in the room I had the Sunday Night Football song playing to get them pumped up and ready!

I broke the class up into two teams for the math review game. Each team had a designated “captain” who came forward for the coin toss. Another teacher happened to stop by so she became our NFL commissioner and actually tossed the coin for us! Heads won and off we went!

The review game included some of the questions above. This unit in math covered items such as: combos of 10, counting and adding on, solving word problems, identifying and labeling numbers. Teams worked together to figure out the answer and a different child gave the answer each time to make sure everyone was included. Each time they got an answer correct they earned 10 yards. I planned it ahead of time so that each team would end up with the same points so we had no hurt feelings. At the end of the game, each team added up all of their tens to see who won! Since each team won, each player got a football bracelet from Party City that had sports sayings on it.

Football Math Stations:

To continue reviewing for out test we also completed math stations with activities practicing the different skills. The football popcorn holders held the activities and these were from Party City. Each group rotated to each station as you can see below.

This activity was completed with my teaching aide. She would give the kids a number and they would fill it in on the ten frame. Then she would ask further questions like how many more would you need to make 10.

This tens frame Around the Room activity I got on TPT from Resource Ranch. Students would add the two numbers together and record their answer on the recording sheet.

Students worked on football story problems when they came to my station. I created similar problems but differentiated the numbers to meet the different levels in my classroom.

Students worked on ordering numbers at this station. There were baggies with ten numbers in it and the kids had to put them in order from least to greatest. The football numbers are from Teacher Trish.

At this station students played Memory with the football cards. This was a great way to practice combos of 10!

Reading:

During reading we read and discussed the story Football Dinosaurs. Then, during snack we watched the Tiki Barber story on Tumble Books.

Writing:

To tie in writing, students wrote their opinion about their favorite sport. We brainstormed all the different kinds of sports and students picked one to write about. They also had to give a reason for their choice. This page is from The Simplified Classroom.

Conclusion:

All in all this one was of my favorite teaching days ever! We had so much fun and was I tired at the end of the day! You exert so much energy during days like this that I had no trouble going to sleep that night!

Stay tuned…I have another room transformation coming in a few weeks! Be sure to follow me on Instagram to stay up to speed with all of the latest in my classroom!

TPT Bonus Sale Tomorrow

Writing, Reading August 20, 2018

Tomorrow – Tuesday, August 21 is the TPT Back to School BONUS Sale!! My entire store – Team J’s Classroom Fun- Jordan Johnson – will be on sale for up to 25% off with the code BTSBONUS18!

Here are a few ELA resources you might be interested in:

Grammar Fix-It BUNDLE: Great way to practice a variety of grammar skills! Can be used as a formative assessment, in a literacy station, or as a whole or small group activity. Includes: capitals, end marks, commas, apostrophes, high frequency spelling words, quotation marks, and verb tense agreement.

Opinion Writing Prompt Cards: Great way to cover opinion writing for first and second grade! These are perfect to throw into a Writing Station! 30 different opinion prompts included.

Surprises According to Humphrey Book Study: I use these during literacy stations. I have students partner up and work on book studies together! I then meet with students to discuss and we have a little book club of sorts!

Load up those shopping carts for tomorrow! Also make sure you leave feedback on past purchases to earn credits that you can use on future purchases.

Quick Comma Intro

Writing April 2, 2018

Commas has been on our class schedule for multiple days and each day it got pushed because something ran long. While commas are important and do have their value, as we know we often run out of time in any given school day. Anyways – the kids were excited because we finally, finally, finally got to talk about commas the other day.

Now, there are many different times we need commas and it can be a bit overwhelming. To start, we watched the Brainpop Jr. (maybe it was Brainpop) video about commas. Moby is always entertaining and the kids enjoy learning along with him.

After watching the video, we started a class anchor chart about commas. As I mentioned there are many times to use commas, but to make it a little less overwhelming on Day 1 we focused on three specific times. On the anchor chart, we talked about using commas for the date, between city and state, and when listing items or events. I put up each instance and we also came up with an example or two that matched that situation.

Then, since we were running out of time again and almost late for library, I gave a quick exit ticket type assignment. I had students go back to their seats and write down a sentence using commas as a list on their white board. I wanted something that would be quick, but also something that I could do a quick check that would be a formative assesment.

It went great! The kids wrote their sentences and headed to library. While they were at library I went around to see if they understood how to use commas correctly in a list and almost all of them did. Then, they returned from library and their sentences out with their table group.

So super quick, easy way to introduce commas and a great way to do a quick check for understanding.

If you’re looking for more comma practice, check out my Grammar Fix-It Commas product.

Grammar Skills Included:
• Commas separating single words, capitals, and end marks
• Commas separating cities and dates, capitals, and end marks
• Commas used in introductory phrases, capitals, and end marks
• Commas used in compound sentences, capitals, and end marks
• All types of commas, capitals, end marks, and apostrophes (possessive nouns and contractions)

Verbs, Verbs, and More Verbs

Writing February 26, 2018

Today I’m going to share some ideas with you for how I teach verbs in the classroom. Verbs is a typical grammar skill that I know is taught in most primary classrooms – so most of this info will be applicable to K-3.

I love using Brainpop Jr video clips as a way to introduce content – especially grammar skills. Brainpop Jr has video on verbs and one on verb tenses. When I introduced verbs we just watched the verbs video. Afterwards, since I teach second grade and know most of my students had worked with verbs before, I had students create their own circle map of verbs. I challenged them to come up with 20 or more verbs on their circle map. Once they finished that, I gave each student two small post-it notes. I asked them to pick their two best verbs and write one on each note. Then, they came up and put it on our whole class verbs circle map. I like having anchor charts be interactive and this was a way for everyone to participate.

Since they have a good understanding of verbs we next played Act It Out – Verbs. This is a FREEBIE in my TPT store. This is pretty much verb charades. Students pick out a card and act out the verb. The rest of the class has to guess the verb they are acting out. They had a blast doing it and have been requesting to play it again. This is great because it gets kids up and moving – and kids can always use movement!

Next up and the large focus in second grade, we were going over verb tense agreement. We again started by watching a Brainpop Jr video and discussing what the different tenses were – past tense, present tense, and future tense. I then created a tree map (no picture unfortunately) with three branches – one branch for each tense. Then, the kids and I came up with some verbs and modified them for each tense. We practiced regular verbs and irregular verbs.

Then, we worked on my Verbs Around the Room Activity. I normally do this as an Around the Room activity, but due to timing it was easier to do it on the white boards. This is available in my TPT Store.

I also have two more verb activities to show you. Grammar Fix It – Verb Tense Agreement provides students practice not only picking the correct verb tense, but also fixing capitals, end marks, and apostrophes.

And, I’m super excited to show you my newest TPT product. Verb Tense Printables are super easy to use – just print and go! They work as formative assessments or independent practice. The printables could be used whole group, small group, in a literacy station, or for independent work. I have two different printables. One provides practice changing the verb tenses. The second practice option has students choose the correct word/verb tense to complete the sentence.

Be sure to sign up for my Team J Newsletter! Tomorrow I will be sending out a freebie to my email subscribers from my new Verb Tense Printables pack!

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