Mini Lessons for Elementary
A mini lesson does one thing. It names a single skill, models it briefly, and releases students to use it, usually inside a longer workshop block.
One teaching point, no more
The discipline of the mini lesson is subtraction, not addition. If you are naming two skills, it is not a mini lesson, and students will remember neither.
Ten minutes of teaching, the rest working
The ratio is the whole idea. If the teaching runs past fifteen minutes, the workshop time it was supposed to protect has gone.
Come back at the end
Two minutes of sharing at the close is what turns a mini lesson into a habit rather than a one-off announcement.
