Lisa's Mini Lesson

Reading/Writing Mini-Lesson Template

Mini-Lesson Topic: Vocabulary Sentences

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Introduce students to fill in the blank sentences; help students make connections to vocabulary words and how they fit into a sentence; find meaning in vocabulary words

Materials needed: pencil, list of prepared sentences, vocabulary list/word bank

Connection	In first grade, we have been learning about… Vocabulary words and taking tests every week on those words. Today, I’m going to teach you about/how to… use those vocabulary words to help you with reading and writing sentences
Teach Mentor Text: Anchor chart: Themes	Today, I’m going to show you how…  To complete ‘fill in the blank’ sentences Using… your vocabulary words. I have put your vocabulary words in the word bank and those are the words we are going to use where the blanks are in the sentences. We have to read each sentence carefully to see which word will go best in the blank. Let’s do the first one together; Sixty minutes is equal to one ________. (Word bank: Hour, now, time, mine, fun, done)
Active Engagement (Turn and talk to partner, share with group)	Now it’s your turn to try… I would like both of you to read the sentences and try to fill in the blanks with the vocabulary words. If you get stuck, ask each other for help, and I will be sitting here if you have questions. ( Continue filling out the other four sentences using the word bank) If this takes a long time, we will do them together. If they fly right through this, I would then have them make up sentences for each word. Depending on the time, they could make up sentences and have the other person try to fill in their blanks. Before they are done, I will ask each student to tell me what each word means in their own words to ensure they understand that words have meanings and we use them in particular ways because of those meanings.
Link	Today, I taught you how to… vocabulary words to build sentences and to find the meanings of words. When you go off to read today and every time you read, you’re going to… think of a word you don’t know that you read and then re-read the sentence it is in. Try to figure out the meaning of the new word from the sentence it is in before asking a teacher for help.
Independent reading time (conferences)	Students to conference with: William, Ryan, and possibly Teasia (if she is caught up from her absent work) –While the rest of the class is retaking their spelling test (which these kids already passed) I will ask them to come up with a sentence of their own for each vocabulary to fit in Possible future teaching points: how to use a dictionary to find what a words means.
Sharing (individual, partner, group)	Students to share: While the rest of the class is grading their spelling tests, I would like for the 2-3 students to go out in the hall or to the rug to share the sentences they formed. They can give feedback to each other if the sentences made sense or not Focus: Individual work primarily as this is a tool to help these students further their reading and writing in comprehension, word recognition, and understanding of meaning

Reflection

            This mini lesson went over much better than I could have imagined. These students usually have to sit and read silently while the rest of the class re-takes their spelling test, so having something for them to do was a nice change up in their routine. These students are also naturally talented with literacy so they were excited to learn something new and exciting that was specialized to them.

            The few times I have given their spelling tests on Fridays, I have said the vocabulary word, provided a simple sentence, and restated the vocabulary word. So these students had already started thinking about how these vocabulary words fit into a sentence structure. Filling in the blanks I gave them was not a problem as I kept them pretty easy. The sentences they formed on their own were great! They had a wide range of simple sentences to a strand of a few sentences to explain each vocabulary word. They asked if they could do this every week and I told them it depended on if they had to re-take their spelling test or not and if they had other work that needed to be finished first. They were really excited at the thought of doing this activity again which was a very cool feeling for me, knowing they were so geared to learn and further their learning.