Main Idea and Details

In Social Studies we have been learning a lot about the United States! We have been fortunate enough to participate in Mystery Skypes (so far) with classrooms in Wisconsin, Utah, Massachusetts, Alabama, Texas, Nebraska, and Michigan. (Yes, Michigan! It took everyone awhile to realize we could have a Mystery Skype with someone in our own state!)

We are also using our study of the United States to practice important informational reading skills. This week we used our reading to work on identifying main idea and supporting details. 

Students needed to read each paragraph carefully and identify the main idea and three details that supported that main idea.They then used an app to write those ideas down.

We used an app new to us called Popplet to show our work.

Here are some examples of what we did.

Everyone did such a good job! Popplet is engaging and a great way to help us organize our thinking. A number of students finished early and worked on learning how to add images to their Popples. We will definitely be using the Popplet app again for other thinking tasks.

Have you ever visited the Western Region of the United States? If you have, what did you like best about your visit there?