Polar Bears, a Freebie, and New Fonts!

Last week was wonderful! We had a great time digging into main idea and details during our reading time.  We have continued to focus on it because my little ones are having a hard time.  I think it's just a hard concept for all.  I tried to do a few things to make it easier and a bit more exciting.

We started the week by reviewing as I did a whole group lesson. We read winter books and polar bear books.  We made big charts to display in the classroom.  My point with these visuals was that if we took away the details, it wouldn't be a good book and we wouldn't see the main idea.  We even folded under the polar bear's legs and talked about how he didn't look like a polar bear anymore!

I split my friends up into small groups of 4 or 5 and they read a book on their reading level.  Then they had to identify the main idea details.  Each group got to share their main idea and details after.  It's nothing magical whatsoever, but it was SO powerful!

I also introduced this little activity to do in our writing station.  They had to read about polar bears and then write two facts or details that they learned from the book.

All of you who are faithful little blog followers can grab this activity here for FREE! (Click "free" or click the the picture.)

You know, I know the "new thing" (for years now) is not to do things thematically.  But I just have to confess....for my little ones with very little schema, it really helps when we stick with something for a while instead of jumping around all over the place.

P.S. My point was definitely made when several of my kids asked what a tadpole was after reading a book during guided reading.  They had never heard of them and had no idea about the frog life cycle.  When I taught Kindergarten, we taught this then.  Unfortunately, that's not the case with CSCOPE anymore. SADNESS! 

I also made 4 new fonts! I posted them last weekend and added them to file.  Be sure to re-download the file if you purchased them. There is now a total of 14!

I have really enjoyed making these!

You can check these out here in my TpT store. Right now the price is the same.  It will go up eventually and but you will always be able to download the new fonts that are added!

Have a great weekend!! I'm off to enjoy a date night with my hubs!! :)