Teaching Theme and Message

Teaching Theme and Message

Teaching theme to our fourth graders sometimes seems to be mind blowing. So, we start slowly by brainstorming common themes found in literature by using previous books we read together as a class (mostly picture books). We discovered some really cute posters from Hello Fourth. We not only posted them in our classrooms, but also used them to create an interactive notebook page to record our findings.

The next day we read The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah. It is a delightful story of two young girls that learn to accept each others differences. We discussed the plot and decided on the theme by brainstorming questions readers ask. Next, we created an anchor chart that reminded the students ways to infer theme because the theme is usually implied not stated. Also, we talked about the author's message, which is usually a declarative statement based on the main idea.

The following day we reviewed common themes, author's message, and ways readers infer them. We are blessed in our classrooms to have a 1:1 tablet student ratio. We used a website called EDpuzzle. It's a wonderful site that enables self paced learning with your students with interactive videos that allows you to add your voice or questions into the video. Next, we found four well known Disney/Pixar Classic movie clips: Jack Jack Attacks, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, and Up. The students watched the clips and decided on a common theme as well as author's message (multiple choice answers given). Last, they provided evidence of their thinking.


If you would like to use the same clips for the activity in your own classroom, we have provided them below. Also, click HERE if you want the FREEBIE recording sheet for the clips. Enjoy!

Incredibles

Toy Story

Finding Nemo

It's a Bug's Life

Up


We really believe this engaging lesson helped our students begin to understand or make connections with common themes and author's message.