If you’re new around here, you may not know that I am ALWAYS preaching on and on about managing your time in the classroom efficiently, especially when it comes to centers.

This is because I am of the firm belief that centers clear space for the best teaching you can possibly give: small group time.

We as teachers get so bogged down in a bajillion (let’s pretend that’s a professional term, ok?) centers for our kids to do in one week, that we are exhausted and rarely give that much thought to our small group instruction.

It should 100% be the other way around.

Want strong data? Want engaged kids? Want growth? Want to foster a love of reading?

Small group is where it’s at.

But, even if small group time is your favorite thing, and you have this well-oiled machine of a literacy block…things can still feel a little stale sometimes. It happens to literally everyone. You get to a point in the year where you sit down to start a new week of reading groups with new texts and it all feels very boring.

If it’s boring for you, it’s boring for the kids. Time to shake things up!

Enter: my small group engagement series! This will be one of many, I’m sure. These lessons are uniquely crafted to spice up small group instruction in the way that is so much easier to do for math. Grab a set of cards or some double dice, and you have no less than 25 games at your fingertips. Reading requires some careful planning…and if you do have a great reading activity, it’s probably one of very few that you have in your arsenal.

This first small group lesson is called “Cooking Up Main Idea”. I love it for three reasons:

1.) It’s chef-themed which is adorable.

2.) It can be used with ANY text. I do not provide a text here on purpose. I want you to use what you need to use in your room and not be boxed in by what I wrote for this one product. That raises the cost without necessarily adding value. (I have authored literally dozens of reading passages, though…just in case you need something!)

3.) It packs an instructional PUNCH. This teaches kids a great “recipe” for extracting main idea from any text. Follow the recipe repeatedly until they become such master chefs they can toss the recipe to the side and cook from memory…like any great chef would!

Watch the video below to see my detailed explanation of the lesson, and scroll below to grab it for yourself!