Make my Illustration Unit Simple and Fun to Teach Using Slides

Picture this, it’s the third day of school. Your kindergarten students are getting to know each other and beginning to form cute little bonds… in other words, they talk a lot. Your district’s pacing guide says that you MUST start the curriculum today but your students are still learning how to be in school and ask to go to the bathroom, and you're panicking a bit about how it will go. 

Then you remember that you're starting the Illustration Unit today, and you have everything you need pre-written and in order on slides. You feel yourself begin to calm down and realize that you’ll be able to easily start this curriculum, without tons of prep, while also teaching and practicing classroom routines. And it will be fun! 

Wow, what a dream. Let’s make that a reality shall we? 

What is the Illustration Unit? 

This is a 4-week writing unit designed specifically for the beginning of the school year (although you can certainly use it at any point throughout the year). This unit focuses on creating a classroom full of confident illustrators! It focuses ONLY on illustrations to allow you to build a strong foundation before asking students to add letters and words to their writing. It is also an excellent chance to practice those fine motor skills before diving deeper into handwriting and writing in general! 

You can read much more about the unit in my blog post, How to Use my Illustration Unit.  You can also try out the unit with this freebie! 

For now, I want to take you through how you can use the prebuilt slides (included when you purchase the unit) effectively in your classroom. 

What do the slides include? 

When you grab the Illustration Unit you will also be given access to over 200 editable slides to use throughout the unit. These take you through each lesson step by step. 

Each lesson begins with a slide stating the teaching point of the lesson. For example, the teaching point for lesson 1 is “Writers can explore how to build with shapes”. Then, you’ll find a slide with pictures of all the materials needed. 

After this, you’ll guide the students through a brief mini-lesson using the slides! I have written out what I might say to my students. Of course, you can put this into your own words and adjust it to fit the needs of your classroom! Often, the mini-lesson includes a directed drawing video as well as examples of student work. This is an excellent way to ensure that students see the end goal of the lesson and understand what you will be asking them to do. 

Each lesson includes a “You Do” section of slides. These slides take students through the work they are expected to complete or the skills they need to practice. Students will see the directed drawing instructions and worksheets displayed largely and be able to follow along. The “Student Task” slide serves as an excellent reminder of what students should be working on. I recommend keeping this slide up throughout independent work time so that students get used to referring to it! 

Finally, you’ll end by allowing your students to share their work with their peers. This is an important step that helps them to take pride in their work! 

How will slides help me? 

Using slides to help you teach this unit is a huge, huge time saver! This unit includes 21 lesson plans, and although they are all prepared for you as print-and-go lessons, there is still a certain amount of prep that goes into printing the lessons, collecting materials, and prepping examples for your students. With the addition of these slides, you can forgo many of these tasks. As teachers, we know that any little thing we can do to save time is worth it! 

As mentioned above, the slides also provide students with a visual aid to help them follow along. Instead of wasting colored ink or taking up valuable plan time to draw your anchor charts, use the slides and project them as needed! 

If you have other adults coming in and out of the room throughout your writing block, it can be difficult to be sure that they know student expectations. With the help of this resource, any adult coming into the room can see exactly what is expected and begin assisting learners. 

How can I get access to these? 

When you purchase my Illustration Unit you will automatically receive access to the slides along with all the other resources included in the product! You can also try out the illustration before purchasing by grabbing this freebie!