Activation of Prior Knowledge:
Review basic rules of capitalization for the start of a sentence, names of people, personal I, days of the week, and months of the year.

Lesson Focus:
To get children settled down, have them read a short section from a story they are familiar with; the story will be used later in the lesson. After they have finished the story, review the rules of capitalization and provide examples on the chart paper. Write simple sentences containing capitalization errors; read the sentences with the class and ask if the capitalization is correct. When students find an error, ask a volunteer to come up and point out the error using a pretzel stick as a pointer. Ask the student to explain the error and how it can be corrected.

With the class, write a paragraph or two about what the students did last week. Ask questions such as, “What day was it? Who did you play/talk with?”, to get them to use words that need capitalization. As you are writing ask, “Do I need to capitalize here? Why or why not?”

On the blackboard, hang a piece of chart paper that contains the story that was read at the beginning of class. (The story should have all of the capitalization removed.) Ask the students to read the story with you and to help you correct it. Again, the students can come up and point out an error using their pretzel sticks. In closing conduct a short review of capitalization rules, and let students eat their pretzel sticks

Assessment: Teachers may want to create a worksheet for students to complete -- based on the most common errors that were made during the lesson.