Mini Lessons

Mini Lessons

I have been trying to get a 10 minute reading mini lesson in at the beginning of reading. It has been a fun challenge to figure out where I am going with each mini lesson and how much I can teach in 10 minutes! I have been trying to incorporate our anthology (basal) into the mini lessons. I use the anthology to assess the skill I am teaching in the mini lesson. I am currently reading Mosaic of Thought by Keen and Zimmerman. I am sure this will change my view of teaching skills during mini lessons! But for now, it is working.

Where Do You Have Mini Lessons?

Book Lists

Mini Lessons

Reading Mini Lessons Links

Writing Mini Lessons Links

Where Do You Have Mini Lessons?

I usually have mine in front of the room or in front of my easel on the carpet; it depends on what I am teaching! I really like to have my lessons on the carpet for two reasons: 1.) Students have to stand up and move and get some of the restlessness out and 2.) It builds a sense of community with all of us sitting close together learning about the same things.

My second year of teaching I pulled an easel (literally) out of the trash. I took the legs apart and tried to make it balance and repainted it. I did all of this at school- and was quite proud of myself. I used it for two years. This summer I asked my handy father to fix it up for me and it is BEAUTIFUL!

Here is a front view. My dad added cups on hooks to store pens and markers and such.

Here is a side view. You can see the two shelves my dad added for extra storage.

Here is a back view. The long silver bar will be where I drape all my loose leaf chart paper.

I love it! I am going to get a bucket and store charts on the bottom shelf along with my tub of magnetic letters for making words.

Book Lists

Book List by Deb Smith from the Reading Lady website

Huge list of books to use with MOT strategies- Click on the first link at the top

List of Books For Writing Crafts and Reading Skills

Another Book List For Reading and Writing

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Mini Lessons

Reading Mini Lessons

Questioning Mini Lessons- printable lessons, resources and book lists! Big page!

Inferencing Mini Lessons- HUGE unit with tons of graphic organizers and printables!

Cause and Effect Mini Lessons

Cause and Effect Index Cards for Matching

Cause and Effect signs

Author's Purpose Mini Lessons

Time for Kids Link (Authors Purpose- to persuade)

Fact and Opinion Mini Lessons

Fact and Opinion Game (see lessons above for directions)

Fact and Opinion Game Answer Key

Fact and Opinion Sorting Activity (see lessons above for directions)

Plot Mini Lessons

Plot index cards for labeling chart- Print these out on card stock and laminate for durability

Plot chart

Thank You, Mr Falkner cards-(see lesson above for directions). Double check these- I wrote them off the top of my head!

Reading Strategy Posters shared by Tiffany Edelen (These are great- I just printed them for my own classroom!)

Writing Mini Lessons

Encouraging Students to be Descriptive in Writing Using Similes- This is a writing unit that a very talented first grade teacher at my school created. I simply adapted some of the ideas and many I borrowed EXACTLY as she created them. These lessons are to encourage students to become more descriptive in their writing by using similes and noticing how authors use similes to paint a picture in the readers mind.

Writing a Response to Literature- I wrote this for a staff development I did at school on writing with a colleague. It is a little different than many response to reading units since I focused on a character analysis paragraph rather than writing text connections. Most the teachers at my school were comfortable with this already, so I tried a different direction. You will need the character inference graphic organizer for this unit.

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Mini Lesson Links for Reading

http://www.sandi.net/dingeman/teachers/rw_lessons.htm

Great list of books to support MANY different skills and strategies taught during mini lessons

http://www.mayer.cps.k12.il.us/Strategies_that_Work/STW.htm

Excellent resource with many links and ideas!

http://www.u46teachers.org/mosaic/tools/tools.htm

This website has tons of information. It has reporting and assessment forms as well as lesson plan ideas.

http://www.tooter4kids.com/Classroom/guided_reading_mini_lessons.htm

What to do lessons on...

http://home.midwest.net/~cazueck/readlessons.htm

For third grade.

http://www.learner.org/channel/libraries/makingmeaning/makingmeaning/support/workshop.pdf

Ideas for WHAT to teach in a mini lesson.

http://www.effectiveteachingsolutions.com/writingworkshop.htm

This wonderful site lists books to use in different writers workshop mini lessons. Not only will you get ideas for mini lessons, but a text to match!!!

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Mini Lesson Links for Writing

As far as writing, I get almost ALL of my writing lessons from the Ralph Fletcher book Craft Lessons. I love this book. I usually get the idea for my mini lessons there and then stretch them out with other ideas

http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/resources/languagearts/readingwriting/demo.html

This is a movie clip of a teacher teaching a writing mini lesson if you are new and would like to "see" this is motion!

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/8405/minilessonmenu.html

For older students, but can be adapted to other ages.

http://www.youth.net/cec/ceclang/ceclang-elem.html

Ideas for writing.

http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/resources/languagearts/readingwriting/minilessons.htm

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/writing_workshop%20Structure.htm

Here is a list of mini lessons that are appropriate for third grade and can easily be adapted for upper grades.

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Graphics are from

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