Ice Cream or Main Idea?

Summertime = Ice Cream in our home.  And my girls have discovered that they love the new frozen yogurt bars that are popping up all over town.  They love to pick their favorite flavor of yogurt...but more importantly...the toppings!

My ALL-TIME favorite ice cream is by far UDF (United Dairy Farmers).  Cookies n'Cream...love it!!

(This was the original store...right down the street from our school!)

I tried making some healthy ice creams for my girls this year from some different blog sites.

Single Ingredient Ice Cream from Use Real Butter

Vegan Avocado Frozen Yogurt from Fit Sugar

 They were really good.  The girls loved them!! I would never admit it to my little girls...but... OH how I love my UDF!

So...thinking about our summertime ice cream led me to another thought...main idea.  This is something that can be challenging for some (or many) students.  And even more of a challenge...supporting that main idea.

This lesson came to me one day on a whim.  I was frustrated because after giving the DRA, I realized that many students were really struggling with telling WHY an event was their favorite part of the book.  I wanted to help them with this.  That is when I discovered this:

Ice cream toy from our play kitchen

 I told the students that the best part of an ice cream cone is the ice cream and that it is just like the best part of a book.  We talked about how important the cone is because it SUPPORTS the ice cream.  If we did not have the cone, all the ice cream would just melt in our hands.  I related this concept to supporting or giving reasons why something is our favorite.  Once we worked on this...I was able to relate this lesson to main idea and supporting details.

I created these graphic organizers to go along with the lesson.

Click HERE to download

Click HERE to download

Do you have good tricks to helping students support their answers?  Or do you have any great ice cream suggestions?  Yum!

Em