We are 3 weeks in and I FINALLY got to teach a comprehension skill!
Although my entire schedule will change next week {oh you know how schools work, they change things without notice}, I’m just happy to be getting into the content and actually getting to teach!
So apparently, on our pacing guide, our first skill is “Main Idea” with non-fiction text! Yikes. Well any who, I delved into researching {aka pinterested–is that a verb now??} ideas on Main Idea. I found some pretty awesome stuff!
To start, I introduced my kids to Moby. Do you know Moby? If you don’t, you better get to know him. He’s a life saver. Kids ALWAYS love him.
We watched this awesome BrainPop Jr. video on main idea.
I always try to give my kids as many visuals to help engrain into their little minds all of these concepts.
Here are some of the visuals I used:
{the main idea is what the story is about, while the details tell more about the story}
I love this crayon box idea! My kids did too!
I always try to do a specific activity for each new concept before applying it to whatever text we read.
Here’s what we did:
I wrote/drew out a few main idea/details circle maps. I left out the main idea, which goes in the middle, and drew pictures as the details. I showed the students my circle maps and had them guess what the main idea was. THEY LOVED IT & NAILED IT 😉
We did the ocean, soccer, and St. Patrick’s Day as a class.
We held up a hand, pointed to our palm and said “the main idea is the ocean”, then held each finger as we told the different details, “whales live in the ocean is a detail”…
Then I gave each student a “main idea” picture, which they glued into the middle and had to draw details around it that described it. We labeled it too.
Here are some student examples:
We can then apply this to our latest read about seasons! We will be making circle maps and tree maps to get our main idea and details in order 🙂
Anonymous says
What great ideas! Thank you for sharing, I can use these in my class.
Jackie says
Great ideas for main idea! I would love to use the Brain Pop Main Idea video, but the subscription costs. Is this correct? Thanks for sharing, Jackie
jmcmanam@w-sioux.k12.ia.us
Jen Bonner//Sparkling in Second says
Yes it is a paid subscription, I have one through my school. But it's worth the money for schools!
Shaleen Sullivan says
These are great! Is there a way to send or purchase your worksheets? Thanks!
Jen says
I just made a circle map and stuck a picture in the middle 🙂