Summarizing Superheroes to the Rescue!

Do you find it difficult to teach your little ones how to summarize?  My kiddos seem to want to share every little detail.  Quite frankly, that is just too much and can get a little boring.  So, I've had to go over with my kids how to be concise and not include everything.  They still seemed to struggle with it.  Of course I had my high kiddos that listen to every word I say and apply it immediately, but those middle of the road learners were just struggling!

So, I came up with summarizing superheroes!  I thought if I made it fun they would be more willing to learn about it and perhaps focus more.  Well, I think it worked!  I hope you can find some of these tools useful.  You can also purchase my summarizing superheroes pack in my store for a great price.  It includes the lessons, learning targets, and activities we did!

I started the unt by sharing with my kids that they were all going to be superheroes.  They were pumped!  Then, we discussed that superheroes are people that save the world.  We are going to be the superheroes that save the world one summary at a time!  We were going to make our world better and smarter.  (They ate this up!) 

We first brainstormed why we should summarize and what it means to summarize.

Then, we made our superhero masks to wear while we read to help us summarize!  They are really simple and the template is in my unit.

We reviewed what goes in a summary by practicing the order of a summary.  The students completed the cut and paste worksheet so I could check for understanding. 

After students understood what we were doing, we dug deeper into the summaries.  Students learned what goes in a summary and the format we use to write a summary.  Then, they learned how to make a summary better.  In order to make a summary better, we needed to use transition words and have good sentence starters so we weren't saying "The characters are... The setting is.."    Having this visual for the kids really helped them apply it to their writing.  We also discussed different sentence starters to make our writing better!

Once students starting working on their summaries on a book of their choice, I gave them capes to wear with their masks to help them get into their character.  I just bought tablecloths from Dollar tree and cut them in half.  It was perfect!

Students made superheroes to showcase their notes to help them remember how to write a great summary!

We had a mini-lesson about finding the main idea and using it to find 3-4 big details to support it.  We used this template to help us organize our thoughts.  We then used this information to help complete their summary.

Check out my kiddos hard at work summarizing!

The students were really getting into their summaries and asked to wear their costumes everyday.  It made learning fun and I enjoyed teaching them!


If you ever need a display idea for an event, here is what I did to showcase our summaries!