Rainbows, Unicorns, and Teaching
April 9th is Unicorn Day and I, for one, am seriously excited. The unicorn and rainbows craze is still going strong. My classroom embraces it in several ways that lead to wonderful memories that get discussed all year. Today, I’ll highlight three.
Picture books make amazing mentor texts to teach important concepts such as author’s purpose and author’s message. Specifically, I focus on unicorn-themed books that are meant to entertain. Thankfully, there is no shortage of books to choose from.
Unicorn Day by Diana Murray is a must! Its enthusiastically happy illustrations set the tone and introduce Unicorn Day. This would be perfect to read in the morning after students come in. As a mentor text, it can be used for multiple purposes. In addition to eliciting buy-in from our students, it can also be utilized for word study due to the enchanting rhymes throughout the book, which could also lend themselves to a study of poetry. Focusing on author’s purpose and message, we would discuss how the author wrote this book to entertain us and share a message of self-love. Hello, built-in SEL lesson! So many purposes, one fantastical book.
Affiliate link: Unicorn Day
You may be saying to yourself, “Wait, Melissa, this book is about yetis, not unicorns!”, but stay with me. This warm and fuzzy story follows George and his family of yetis as George tries to figure out who he really is and grapples with whom he wants to be versus whom he is expected to be. In the end, we discover that George isn’t really a yeti at all. He’s a unicorn! This story is perfect for so many parts of the year, and especially on Unicorn Day, to provide students with the reminder to be true to themselves.
Affiliate link: Not Yet a Yeti
This book is hilarious and lends itself to being a mentor text you could utilize in both your reading and writing workshops. I use this story to teach the author’s purpose to entertain and to teach opinion writing. More on that in a minute.
Affiliate link: You Don’t Want a Unicorn
Want to learn exactly how I teach my students about author’s purpose?
Watch my YouTube video here: Author’s Purpose Video
Everyone has an opinion about unicorns. In my classroom, it tends to be either love or hate, with no in-between. This lesson gives students the chance to get that opinion out into the world.
I start during our read-aloud time with the book mentioned above, You Don’t Want a Unicorn. Then, I use this anchor chart to have students record their opinion on whether or not they would want a unicorn for themselves. This anchor chart then becomes part of an adorable bulletin board.
After we record our opinions, we discuss the success criteria for opinion writing with this anchor chart. Discussing expectations before we begin is essential. This practice gives students clear directions and something to look back on when they get stuck.
Once we all know what is expected and have a clear idea of what we’re writing about, we begin the writing process. When we get to the point where the students have created their final draft, we begin our final projects. At this stage, they even get to use special supplies such as unicorn spacers. This just adds to the magic.
Writing having been completed; my students finish their craftivity with their favorite element – glitter! You can’t have a true unicorn activity without glitter. I will put certain students in charge of the glitter which tones down the chaos that it can sometimes turn into.
If you’d like to do the lesson described here, check out the link below!
The fact that I am singing from the rooftops about engagement will come as no surprise. Students learn best when they are excited and happy about what they are doing. No, not everything in life is always going to be exciting, and sometimes we must learn things we find boring. However, as much as we can, we should aim to wrap the learning in activities and subjects our students are passionate about. Unicorns just happen to be one of them now. Use that! Kids learn best when they are happy and interested in the task at hand.
