Capital and period detectives: a 20-minute 1st grade editing activity
What it is: a 1st grade editing activity where students act as detectives and find missing capital letters and periods in short notes, then fix them with a colored pencil. It builds the habit of rereading their own writing.
Time: about 20 minutes. Grade: 1st grade.
Materials: "case files": short notes with 4 to 6 mistakes (missing capitals at the start of sentences and names, missing periods), magnifying glasses or paper ones, and red or green colored pencils.
- Show a note on the board: "my dog is big he likes to run" Read it without stopping and ask: "What's wrong?"
- Name the two rules of the day: a sentence starts with a capital and ends with a period; names start with a capital.
- Fix the board note together, using a colored pencil color for each fix.
- Pairs open a case file, read it aloud and fix each mistake.
- Each pair reads the fixed note to the class, pausing at each period.
Differentiation: students who need support get notes with only missing periods, and the number of mistakes written at the top. Students who are ready fix their own journal entry next. English learners can read the note aloud with a partner first.
Quick check: give a student one sentence with two mistakes and ask them to fix it and say why.
For more ideas at this grade, browse the other free activities on the Hub.
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About this resource
- Shared by
- @UpOnlyLearning · Curriculum team
- Posted
- Oct 30, 2026
- Type
- Lesson plan
- Grade
- Grades K–2
- Subject
- Writing
- Language
- English
- License
- Free for classroom, co-op and tutoring use. Please don't resell.