Main Idea and Details!!

This week, our focus was on understanding main idea and details. This seems to be an abstract and difficult concept for many of my little darlings. We read a story in our reading series that many of the kids were not connecting with. So I decided to use a craftivity about Main Ideas from Amy Lemons. We created super cute trees! On the trunk of the tree, we wrote the main idea and we wrote the details on the each of the leaves. We created one large tree together as a class, which included as many details as the kids could find in the story.

Then the kids got to work to create their own trees about the story we read. They need to write the main idea and choose four meaningful details to write on the leaves.

We then created a class bulletin board titled, "Rooted in a Great Story."

I posted the Main Idea and Details anchor charts on the board to remind the kids how to use the skill they just learned. Here is a closer look which shows the kid-friendly standard as well.

I think using a hands-on activity to reinforce more difficult concepts helps create ownership for the kids and they are more likely to understand and apply it. What great ideas do you use to teach main idea and details?

Click the button above and hop on over to Teaching Fourth and link up with your fun ideas and activities for the week!