Are you teaching main idea and in need of a fun and EFFECTIVE activity to help your students? These main idea sorts are just the thing you’ll want to use with your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students this year!
If you’ve ever taught main idea and details, you know how quickly things can go sideways. One minute, your students are nodding along, and the next, they’re convinced the main idea of a paragraph about pollination is ‘Bees are cool.’ 🤦
Getting students to understand the concept of the main idea and details can be difficult! (Especially if your students want to simply choose the first sentence of the paragraph.) That doesn’t always work! And that’s why I created this hands-on main idea activity!
⭐Sign up for your free copy, then continue reading to learn how to use it AND easily differentiate it!⭐
Teaching Main Idea Can Be Tricky!
My students struggled to really understand what a main idea was. They always wanted to just pick the first sentence of the paragraph, but sometimes that sentence was a hook or introductory sentence.
Third graders (and fourth and fifth graders too!) often focus on a random interesting fact instead of the overall point. They’ll zero in on one sentence—usually the one that interested them the most—and confidently claim it’s the main idea.
How This Activity Helps
The idea behind this hands-on sorting activity is for students to ACTUALLY understand what it means for details to SUPPORT a main idea by using a main idea and details mat to organize the sentences from the paragraph.
When students are given the sentences to the paragraph all mixed up and out of order, it requires them to think critically about which of the details supports another.
They can’t just pick the first sentence with this activity! There IS NO first sentence!
Picture this: You hand out the sentence strips, and immediately, a student holds one up like a prize. ‘Ooooh, mine is about thunderstorms!’ Another student is already scanning their strips, trying to figure out where their sentence belongs. That buzz of engagement? That’s exactly why this activity works.
Have a look at the sentences in this picture👇:
Questions to ask students as they are reading all of the sentences:
- Are all of the other sentences about this one?🧠
- Are these sentences related?💭
- What is the main idea the author is trying to tell me in this paragraph?🤔
- What words (or ideas) do you notice being repeated?
The graphic organizer mat allows students to visually organize the sentences by placing the main idea at the top and the supporting details below.
Sometimes simply seeing the sentences on a graphic organizer can help students determine which sentences are the supporting details.
You can do this activity with any paragraph of sentences by simply typing them up and giving them to students out of order. You could even randomly write the sentences from a paragraph on the board and have students recopy them as a paragraph that begins with the main idea.
Teachers also love to use these sorts to practice paragraph writing!✏️
Students will naturally learn the structure of a paragraph as they work with these sentence sorts.
Since students don’t need to spend time writing the content of a paragraph, they can actually focus on the format of a paragraph!
There are four paragraphs for each topic so you can have your students practice writing an essay using the four paragraphs.
Since they are not coming up with the sentences, they will simply be LEARNING how to organize and structure a report!
Easy Ways to Differentiate the Main Idea Sorting Activity!
Make it easier!👉 Take away some of the details sentences so students have less to read.
Make it harder!👉 Give students the sentences for TWO paragraphs (or more) and have them sort and organize the details and main ideas!
If you like this activity, be sure to check out THIS BESTSELLING RESOURCE! OR, save the most and get the ⭐BRAND NEW⭐MEGA YEAR LONG BUNDLE!
You might also want to read about teaching cause & effect with sorts!
