Pen Pal Love and A High 5 Lesson

Last week, I introduced the concept of Main Idea and Details with a non-fiction story from our reading series. This week we continued the concept and I read my kids this adorable fictional story:

After the story, we discussed point of view and then revisited Main Idea and Details. I wanted the kids to be more independent in generating the main idea and details. Maybe I should say, I didn't want to do as much guiding. I was really proud of them. They were very engaged in the story, so I think it was easier for them to come up ideas for the main idea and details. The kids didn't seem confident with the main idea they came up with at first. I explained to them they could come back and revise it if they couldn't come up with any details to support it. They were really pleased with themselves when they realized they hit the nail on the head with their ideas. They came up with a ton of details to support their main idea. After our class discussion, the kids made these cute hands:

They wrote the main idea on the palm and a detail on each of the fingers. To the left you can see our ELA CC Vocabulary Cards that applied to our lesson. 

We also received a special package in the mail last week. We got our first set of pen pal letters from our new friends in North Carolina! My kids were so excited to read about their pen pals. They loved looking at the kid's self portraits and what they wrote about themselves. We put the letters in a binder so everyone can enjoy reading the them.

 Here are some of the adorable self portraits they sent us:

My kids were so excited to get to work on their self portraits and letters. They were so focused and proud of their pictures:

We are finishing up our first letters and can't wait to send them to our new friends in North Carolina!