Hey there! Have you ever wondered why some letters in words are big and some are small? That’s called capitalization, and it’s super important in writing. Let’s learn all about it together!
In the English alphabet, there are 26 letters. But if you count both big (capital) and small (lowercase) letters, there are 52! For example, there’s a big ‘A’ and a small ‘a’, a big ‘B’ and a small ‘b’, and so on. Capital letters help us tell the difference between common and special words.
Common nouns are everyday words like ‘boy’, ‘apple’, or ‘house’. These words don’t need capital letters. But proper nouns are special names for people, places, or things, like ‘Samantha’, ‘Michigan’, or ‘Harry Potter’. These words always start with a capital letter!
Capital letters are used for more than just proper nouns. Let’s learn the six main rules!
The first word in every sentence must be capitalized. For example: “The dog is resting on the bed.” See how ‘The’ starts with a capital letter?
The word “I” is always capitalized when talking about yourself. For example: “I like ice cream.” No matter where “I” is in the sentence, it’s always big!
Names of people and pets are always capitalized. For example: ‘Noah’, ‘Mrs. McMillan’, or ‘Fido’. What capital letter does your name start with?
Proper names of places and things are capitalized. This includes cities, states, and buildings. For example: ‘Florida’, ‘Empire State Building’, or ‘Nintendo’.
Titles of books, movies, and more are capitalized. For example: ‘Toy Story’ or ‘The New York Times’. Only the important words in titles are capitalized.
Days of the week, months, and holidays are capitalized. For example: ‘Monday’, ‘December’, or ‘Christmas’. If it’s important, it’s capitalized!
Now that you know the rules, look around and notice capital letters in signs and books. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at using capital letters when you write. Have fun becoming a capital letter expert!
Thanks for learning with us! Keep practicing and you’ll be a pro in no time!
Capitalization Scavenger Hunt: Go on a scavenger hunt around your home or classroom. Look for items that have words on them, like books, posters, or food packages. Write down three examples of words that use capital letters. Can you find a proper noun, a title, and a day of the week? Share your findings with a friend or family member and explain why each word is capitalized.
Create a Capitalization Story: Write a short story about your day, making sure to use capital letters correctly. Start each sentence with a capital letter, and remember to capitalize names, places, and the word “I”. Draw pictures to go along with your story. Share your story with the class or a family member and see if they can spot all the capital letters!
Capitalization Art Project: Choose a proper noun, like your name or your favorite place, and create an art project around it. Use different colors and materials to make the first letter of the word big and bold. Display your artwork in the classroom or at home, and explain to others why the first letter is capitalized.
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
—
[Music]
**Capitalization for Kids**
Hey kids! Here’s something I bet you don’t think about too often: capitalization. It’s in every book you’ve ever read, many of the signs you see around you, and in the names of TV shows, movies, and games you might love to play. So how do people know when to use capital letters and when not to? That’s what this lesson is going to teach you.
Let’s start with the basics. As you know, there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, but if you include capital letters in that count, there are 52 because you’ve got lowercase a and capital A, lowercase b and capital B, lowercase c and capital C, and so on. Capital letters exist because they’re used to emphasize the difference between common nouns and proper nouns.
A common noun includes people, places, things, ideas, and objects—words like boy, girl, shirt, apple, book, teacher, house, and giraffe. The stuff around us, the everyday items you see, touch, and use, are common nouns, and there are a lot of them.
Proper nouns, on the other hand, are specific people, places, titles, and objects, like your friend Samantha, the state of Michigan, your teacher Mrs. Jones, the month of December, or movies and books like Star Wars or Harry Potter. These proper nouns are also everywhere, and once you understand the difference between them and common nouns, you’ll start to really grasp when and why we use capitalization.
**Quick Quiz:**
– Your friend Adam: Is his name capitalized or not? Yes.
– The word cup: Is that capitalized or not? No.
– The city of Los Angeles: Is that capitalized or not? Yes.
– The word jacket: Is that capitalized or not? No.
As you can see, capital letters are mostly used to tell us the difference between common and proper nouns, but they’re also used at the beginning of sentences to let readers know that a new sentence is starting. Capital letters are almost always used at the beginning of a word and are rarely found in the middle.
Here are the six main rules to memorize if you want to master the use of capital letters:
**Rule Number One:** The first word in every sentence must be capitalized. This includes those in quotations too. For example: “The dog is resting on the bed.” “Have you seen my scarf and hat?” “Come home right after school,” his parents said. Notice how each of those sentences starts with a capital letter. It doesn’t matter what is being written; sentences always begin with capitalization.
**Rule Number Two:** The word “I” is always capitalized when you’re talking about yourself, no matter where in the sentence it’s located. Here are some examples: “I like vanilla ice cream more than chocolate.” “He wanted to go to the movie, but I wanted to stay home.” “My friend and I built a tree house in my yard.” See? No matter where “I” is located in the sentence, it’s capitalized.
**Rule Number Three:** Names of people and pets are always capitalized. This is an easy one to remember: if it’s a name, it starts with a capital letter. For example: Noah, Johnson, Mrs. McMillan, President Obama, Fido. What capital letter does your name start with?
**Rule Number Four:** Proper names of places and things are capitalized. This includes towns, cities, states, roads, countries, destinations, buildings, companies, and more. For example: Florida, Denver, Colorado, Elm Street, the Empire State Building, the Grand Canyon, Natural History Museum, Toyota, Nintendo.
**Rule Number Five:** Titles are always capitalized. That includes books, movies, TV shows, websites, poems, stores, songs, and more. Here are a few examples: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Toy Story, Twas the Night Before Christmas, The New York Times, Facebook, Twitter, PlayStation, Toys R Us. Notice how we only capitalize the important words in the title; words like “and” and “the” are typically left in lowercase.
**Finally, Rule Number Six:** We always capitalize the days of the week, the months of the year, holidays, and other important events like Christmas, Halloween, Monday, Election Day, Friday the 13th, September, July 4th, and so on. The bottom line is, if the word “event” or “place” is important, it is most likely capitalized.
So there you have it! If you can learn those six rules, you’ll be off and running when it comes to capitalization. Take a look at the signs and titles around you. You can start to notice the capital letters in the world. The more you notice them, the better you’ll become at capitalizing words correctly when you write. And remember to practice! As you text and email and write to your friends and family, try to remember the rules of capitalization so you can become a capital letter expert!
Hope you had fun learning with us! Visit us at learnbrite.org for thousands of free resources and turnkey solutions for teachers and homeschoolers.
[Music]
—
This version removes informal language and maintains a clear, educational tone.
