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Practice Summarizing with Pandas!

panda.gif
Rationale

The main goal of this lesson is to teach children how to learn while reading. This is done with summarization. An effective way to teach children how to summarize is through the about-point method. In this method children ask themselves two important questions: 1. What is the text about? (Which shows them the main idea of the text) and 2. What is the main point the writer is trying to make about this topic? (This allows the children to figure out what the important parts of the passage are.) Summarizing should only point out the important parts so the about-point method will allow the children to summarize the texts themselves by pointing out the key parts of the article. This will give them a deeper understanding of the article.

Materials
  1. Animated gif of a panda

  2. Whiteboard or smartboard

  3. Pencil and paper for each child

  4. Copy of panda article for each child https://www.coolkidfacts.com/panda-facts-for-kids/

  5. Panda quiz for each child 

  6. Summarization checklist 

Procedures
  1. Has anyone ever gone on a vacation or spent the day out away from home doing something fun, and then someone asked you what all you did while you were gone? You probably didn’t tell everyyy single detail about what you did because that would take hours, instead you probably just told about your favorite parts and what was the most fun. When we do that we are doing something called summarizing. We can summarize many different things whether it be a story of something we have done, or the important parts of something we have read. We already know how we can summarize a story of something we have done, so today we are going to learn how to summarize the important parts of something we read. 

  2. Something we can use to help us summarize the important parts of what we have read is called the about-point strategy. To use this strategy, you will ask yourself two questions. The first question you will ask yourself is what is the text about? Well that’s pretty easy! The second question is a little bit harder than the first one. You will ask yourself what is the main point the writer is making about that topic? Just like what you would say about what you did on your fun day or vacation away from home. To help us answer the second question we will think of a big category we can out all of the important things from the text into. 

  3. Today we are going to be using the about-point strategy to learn about pandas. Can anyone tell me what they know about pandas? (listen and engage) Yes that is awesome you all know so much about pandas already! DId you know that pandas are some of the shyest and rarest animals in the world? Pandas are so rare you almost can’t find them anymore, which we will learn more about today!

  4. Now we are going to talk about a word that many of you might not know. That word is endangered. Endangered is when a species of animal is so rare that it is almost completely gone! Which of these sentences uses endangered right? 1. The egg was endangered because it touched the hot pan. 2. Pandas are endangered because there are almost none of them left. 3. Socks are endangered when you put them on your feet. Yes, it is the second one because it talks about a species of animal that has a low population. Now I want you guys to try to finish this sentence: Dogs are not endangered because there are _________ of them. (have students answer, multiple answers are acceptable for this sentence). 

  5. Now let’s look at it in this article about pandas. There are only 1000 pandas left in the wild, which means they are endangered. The main reason they are endangered is because the places they live are being cut down and cleared, and there is no bamboo for them to eat. Let’s use the about-point strategy to summarize this information. What is the main topic? The main topic is pandas. What are they trying to say about pandas? They are discussing that pandas are endangered because they have no place to live or food to eat. 

  6. Now I want you to look at an article and tell me what it is about, and what the main point is. Did you know that pandas are only found in China in the wild? You can see them at the zoo, but China is really the special place they call home. They live in areas with mountains and forests in Central China where there’s lots of bamboo. It’s so cool that pandas live in China, I wonder how they got to the zoo! What is the main topic? Yes, it is about pandas. What are they saying about pandas? They are saying that pandas live in places with bamboo in the mountains and forest of Central China. 

  7. Now I will hand out an entire article about pandas, and I want you to summarize the main points for me. You will make a topic sentence for each section using the about-point method. This will help you learn lots about pandas! The point of summarizing is to get all of the main points and put them together so that we have a paragraph of only what the important information was. When we are finished you will take a quiz to show what you have learned about pandas. (pass out articles, after they read and summarize then pass out the quiz)

Summarization Checklist 

____Did students have topic sentences? 

____Did students take out what was not important? 

____Is it significantly smaller than the article? 

____Did students identify important parts? 

____Did students answer both questions in the about-point method?

Panda Quiz
  1. Are pandas born with their spots? 

  2. Do pandas have an extra finger on their hands? 

  3. What do pandas eat? 

  4. Can pandas swim? 

  5. Do bears hibernate? 

Resources
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