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It's teaching children to love reading and writing. I found a fun way to do that and if you have young people in your life, this article is for you. Even if you don't have young people - I bet you'll find a few take aways from adding a little fun to your life!
Mini-lessons lay the foundation for deeper understanding BUT…if you ask my 8 year old, it’s all about having fun! This is my biggest take-away from a recent reading at school. We finished reading Chapter 10 in Literacy Development in the Early Years (Morrow, 2020) and my take away was this: mini-lessons feel like play and that’s the best way to learn is doing things that are fun where you learn without feeling like you’re working. This resonated with me because as a mom, I’d rather take my kids to the petting zoo to learn about animals instead of taking out a workbook. If you make learning fun, kids are more likely to enjoy it for now and for their lifetime! When a teacher says “we need to work on our end of module writing” the class groans, but when you say “have you ever played a game that was so fun you felt like you were transported?” and you tell your class you’re going to read a magical book there are no groans! It’s essential to incorporate mini-lessons and positive encouragement to help students succeed and recognize themselves as writers!
I spent time recently in a 3rd grade classroom where the teacher used the book Zathura (Allsburg, 2002) as a mini-lesson and I ordered the book for our home so I could re-create the experience with my 8-, 10-, and 12-year-olds. I have a little different plan than Mrs. Wagner had. Mrs. Wagner was tying the Zathura book into the end of module writing for their space section of science. I however really appreciate the relationship development with the brothers and want to use the story to help my children appreciate one another. I created a plan to teach my children a fun mini writing lesson using Zathura.
About the Author of Today's Post:
You can delve into my mini lesson below - otherwise, I encourage you to just keep in mind the fun when you're reading and writing. Whether you yourself are the aspiring writer, or you're simply helping someone else (young or old) recognize their own writing talent, don't forget the fun. Feeling uninspired, consider a quit 'stop and jot' exercise and toss a few fun sentences in your journal about the banana section at the grocery store. Writing doesn't have to be grand and it shouldn't be forced. And don't forget the positive encouragement - even if it's encouragement for yourself as you're looking over your rough draft. In a world full of critics, choose to be a cheerleader for yourself and others!
Purpose: Get the family writing and talk about sibling relationships and how being part of a family is important. Focus on shared family experience as building blocks.
Connection:
• Hook: “you know how sometimes we play games and we get so caught up it feels magical and time seems to just disappear”
• Setup: “I heard about this book during my time in 3rd grade this week. They were talking about solar systems and finished their unit reading this fun book. I thought you’d love it so I bought it! What do you notice about the cover? What do you think it’s about? Do you have any predictions about this book? Do you want to write down your predictions and keep them a secret until the end or do you want to share them now and Delphine can record them?
• Objective: We will write down our thoughts at the end of the book and see how closely they match with our predictions.
Discuss vocabulary words (based on the varied ages of the children) and then read Zathura by Chris VanAlsburg
Vocab:
Meteor
Robot
Defective
Rotated
Dangling
Staggered
Tokens
Evasive
Fraternal Twin
See eye to eye
Camouflage
Imminently
Sigh
Squinting
Teach:
-How did the brothers get along at the beginning, middle, and end of the book?
-When did their relationship seem to change? And Why? How do you know?
-How do you think Danny and Walter felt about one another at the end of the book?
-How did the author / illustrator help us as readers understand the relationship between the brothers?
-How do you see a correlation between this fictional story and your relationships with friends and family?
-How has a difficult situation helped you be a better friend, sibling, or person?
-How has a difficult situation changed your perspective about someone or something?
Writing Time:
-Use the other side of your prediction paper and write what you learned from reading Zathura with us today. You can work collaboratively with one another but try to build strong descriptive sentences (add details when you can) with capital letters, and ending marks.
-Remember our chat about a the deluxe cheeseburger method of adding details to our stories - read over your sentences and ask yourself if they're interesting!
-I’m right here to help, and you can also use the book as a reference.
-Include a final sentence talking about how your prediction compares to the story we read.
Conference:
-Begin with a compliment.
-Ask each writer to explain what they’ve been working on.
-Discuss the child’s goals for the writing they are doing ask “what are doing to add depth and detail to your writing?”.
–Ask each child to revise and if time allows, they can write an “alternate ending” and give them a new card.
-Help the child focus on the most important part of their writing based on their age.
Revise:
-Offer new paper if they’d like.
-ask each child to revise based on feedback.
Share:
-Share with one another or share with the group.
Works Cited
Allsburg, C. V. (2002). Zathura. Houghton Mifflin.
Morrow, L. M. (2020). Literacy Development in the Early Years.
To see this lesson being taught in a video, it's broken into 3 parts:
About the Author of Today's Post:Crystal Casavant-Otto writes.
Everything...
If you follow her blog you have likely laid eyes on every thought she has ever had. Her debut novel, It Was Never About Me, Was It? is still a work in progress and shall be fully worthy sometime in 2026...or maybe 2027. She has written for WOW! Women on Writing, Bring on Lemons, and has been featured in several magazines and ezines relating to credit and collections as well as religious collections for confessional Lutherans. She runs a busy household full of intelligent, recalcitrant, and delightful humans who give her breath and keep her heart beating day after day.
Crystal wears many hats (and not just the one in this photo) including student, church worker, musician, singer, mom, and more! She fully believes in being in the moment and doing everything she can to improve the lives of those around her! The world may never know her name, but she prays that because of her, someone may smile a little brighter. She prides herself on doing nice things - yes, even for strangers!
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