C.O.P.S. Club

The class has spent 6 weeks working on capitalizing the beginning of a sentence and putting punctuation at the end of the sentence.  Even after a year of kindergarten working on this skill, plus the past 6 weeks,  half of my class forgets daily.  Since I hear so many upper grade teachers still lamenting the same problem, I decided I was going to try and do something about the situation.  I started the C.O.P.S. Club during the beginning part of our second recess at McKinley.  I set up the club giving the class 2 weeks of warning.  I told them no one wants to be in the club and everyone will want out of the club and to please try to remember our C.O.P.S. saying when writing sentences.  C.O.P.S stands for Capital, OK (does the sentence sound and look OK), Punctuation, and Spelling.  

My students are to use this acronym every time they write a sentence, or during the rereading, or editing of the sentence.  Even after the reminders, 10 of my 20 students are in my club.  They can get out of the club by proving to me they know how to write sentences properly.  I give them 3 sentences to edit daily during the start of recess.  Each one they get correct will earn a tally mark by their name on my "Club" list.  They must get 10 tally marks to get out of the club. 

They can be put back into the club if they don't write sentences correctly during the school day.   I hope this motivates the students to take more care and attend to the proper way to write a sentence.  So if you child tells you they are in a club at school, and they don't like it,  you will know exactly why they have become a member.