I love starting with fantasy because it's so easily recognizable, and also because it's so popular in middle grade fiction! A lot of my second graders are already getting into Harry Potter (I know - it seems young!) and they're super excited to learn about fantasy books. I started each one of these lessons with some fantasy book talks so they could try out some different series!
Here's an outline of our 4-week genre exploration:
Week 1: What is Fantasy?
We introduced the genre with some book talks and a short clip of Harry Potter (I like his first flying lesson as a quick, fun scene - I stop the video when the broom hits Ron in the face!). Some of the series I like to use as an introduction are The Fairy Bell Sisters, Whatever After, Dragon Slayers' Academy, and Rainbow Magic, since I feel like all of those are accessible to most second grade readers. After emphasizing the fantasy elements in all of those books, I tell the students that yes, they're all fiction; but they also have something else in common! I write the word fantasy on the board and ask them to discuss in pairs what words they heard repeated throughout the examples that might put the books in the same genre.
With enough prompting, when we come back together, most of my pairs have come up with the word "magic" (I make sure to say it in every explanation!) and, if I'm lucky, "unusual" or "magical creatures" like dragons, wizards, fairies, and giants. We make a list of some characters that we might find in fantasy books like these, or other books that we can come up with.
The students had to complete an assignment in Seesaw: draw a fantasy scene! They had to label at least one character using a text box (so that I knew what it was and whether or not it was actually a magical creature!). This allowed us to practice logging into and out of Seesaw as well as emphasizing our fantasy elements.
Week 2: A Collaborative Fantasy Concept Map
Okay, this one..... kind of failed. Kind of epically.
I had two goals for this lesson (besides emphasizing the characteristics of fantasy): I wanted kids to practice logging in to the Chromebooks, and I really wanted to give students an idea of what it's like to work on a collaborative document. The first goal I would say we met; the second..... meh.
The first day, I had big plans: Insert a fantasy picture into a slide that I had created, with the end goal being that there should be 20-25 fantasy creatures running around the slide! Um - NO. This was terrible. I'm not sure why I thought this would work, because of course everyone inserted a HUGE image and didn't know how to resize it. I was running around all class period explaining that no one had deleted their picture; they just couldn't see their picture because someone else (or four other someone elses) had put theirs on top of theirs. Yikes!
On Tuesday I had a different plan: Everyone type one fantasy word into a different cell on a table that I had input into a Google Doc. This worked MUCH better, but I'm still not sure I'd do it again because it didn't really teach them anything new about fantasy. Instead it turned into "How do you spell this?" We did have to get creative in thinking of fantasy words; most were magical creatures, but others were words like "castle" or "wand" or, of course, "magic." On the collaborative document side, though, it worked really well! We talked about how a colored cursor means someone else is typing in that cell, and that you should pick a different cell so you aren't typing over each other.
Week 3: Is This a Fantasy Book?
The following week, kids had to identify fantasy books and record them on this sheet, including a description of what makes it fantasy. I typically have them log in to Chromebooks and use Shelf Stuff to find covers that they think look like fantasy books. I love Shelf Stuff because it is engaging, constantly updated, and gets kids excited about new books that they probably haven't heard of before!
This year, though, this lesson fell during our school book fair, when my lessons are pretty crammed into our carpet meeting space in the corner. Since we didn't have the opportunity to spread out on the tables and use Chromebooks, I gave students two ways to find fantasy books: use the iPads to use Shelf Stuff (quicker because you don't have to log in!) or walk around the book fair and find fantasy covers! Any guess about which one they preferred?!
Week 4: Put Yourself in a Fantasy Scene
Our capstone was an introduction to using the green screen and the DoInk app! We started by brainstorming a list of characters and settings that would belong in the fantasy genre. Check out what it looked by the end of the week:
Then kids had to create an image using DoInk that included themselves, a fantasy character, and a fantasy setting. DoInk's Prop Library worked perfectly for this! We were able to find unicorns, dragons, fairies, castles - pretty much anything we wanted to include in our scenes. They turned out SUPER cute, so kids posted the pictures to Seesaw so we could share with their parents. It was the perfect capstone to the unit!
Next up: Historical Fiction!
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