There is a box of Premium Mini Crackers sitting on my kitchen counter. It occurred to me that instead of "super sizing" everything, more and more companies are beginning to "mini size" products. Super sizing is out and mini sizing is in. Same goes for lessons.
Once upon a lesson plan we taught in forty-five minute "dog and pony show" time slots. Today our lessons are shrinking, our teaching points are specific, and our engagement activities are crucial to success. We live in a world of fast. Times are changing at a rapid speed as new information enters our sphere of knowledge by the nano second. Our children are visual, tactile learners who are ready for us to "get to the point" and move on. Their attention span is dwindling. Gone are the days of three points in a message. We are down to one point at a time.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We need to learn to give our students one bite today and another bite tomorrow. One bite and they are full. How do we mini size our lessons?
Begin with your teaching objective and break it into smaller steps. Each small step is a teaching point. Introduce your lesson by connecting your teaching point to something they already know (a prior teaching point is good). Tell your students what you are going to teach them. Teach by modeling your thinking or demonstrating. Try to make your teaching time visually engaging. Utilize signs, posters, PowerPoint, video clips, charts, objects, and other visual aides to keep your student's eyes on the point of the lesson. Keep it short. Keep it simple. The next step is a short, active engagement session where students talk, write, or practice. Finish off by giving students a task to complete involving the teaching point. For example, if you taught students to infer character's feelings, ask them to mark a place in their independent reading books with a sticky note where they inferred. Bring students back together for a quick "turn and talk" session. Students share with partners what they discovered about inferring during their independent reading time.
Try mini sizing your lessons today!
Available Now! Mini Sized Lesson Plans:
Mighty Mini Lesson: Reader's Infer Character's Feelings
This mini lesson uses active engagement strategies to help your students learn how to infer character's feelings in fiction.
Teach the Trait of Ideas in Writing: Unit of Study Writing Mini Lessons
This packet is an entire unit of mini lessons focused on teaching the writing trait of finding ideas.
Preview, Predict, and Set a Purpose for Reading: Mini Lesson PowerPoint
This PowerPoint presentation uses visual engagement for teaching your students to preview, predict, and set a purpose for reading.
Selecting "Just Right Books" : Mini Lesson PowerPoint
This PowerPoint presentation uses visual engagement for teaching your students to select "just right books" on their independent reading level.
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