Main Idea

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA Sometime in December of 1891, Dr. James Naismith was teaching gym at the YMCA College in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was raining, and Dr. Naismith was trying to keep his students active. He wanted them playing a rough game that would keep them moving. He didn't like a few ideas that were too rough. Then Naismith had his breakthrough. He wrote out the rules for a game with peach baskets fixed to ten-foot elevated tracks. Naismith's students played against one another, passing the ball around and shooting it into the peach baskets. Dribbling wasn't a part of the original game. Also it took a while to realize that the game would run more smoothly if the bottoms of the baskets were removed. But this game grew to be one of the most popular sports in America today. Can you guess which one?

• The most popular sport in America

• Dr. James Naismith's career in teaching

• The invention of Basketball

• How to get students active

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA

• Which fuel is best to use for your car

• Gasoline, diesel, and biodiesels area all fuels, but they have important differences in how they are made and used.

• The benefits of biodiesel

• How fuels change the way we drive

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA

• Why to visit Wyoming

• Yellowstone Park's beautiful water falls

• The continental Divide of North America

• Physical features of the Yellowstone Park

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA It is estimated that over twenty million pounds of candy corn are sold in the US each year. Brach's, the top manufacturer, sells enough candy corn to circle the earth 4.25 times if each piece were laid end to end. That's a lot of candy corn, but that's nothing compared to the production of Tootsie Rolls. Over 64 million Tootsie Rolls are produced every day! But even Tootsie Rolls have got nothing on the candy industry's staple product: chocolate. Confectioners manufacture over twenty billion pounds of chocolate in the United States each year. Now that's a mouthful!

• How much of popular candies are sold each year.

• The overpowering candy industry

• Tootsie Rolls are delicious

• Candy corn, the world's most abundant candy piece.

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA

• The 1943 copper penny

• The material of the penny is all that is important.

• Rare and valuable pennies

• Make sure to collect your pennies for further auctions.

Sir Isaac Newton was contemplating the universe in his garden one day in 1665 when he noticed an apple fall from a tree. Newton wondered to himself, “Why should the apple always fall to the ground? Why does it not go sideways or upwards but directly toward the Earth’s center?” After much contemplation Newton concluded that objects are pulled to the Earth through a force that he called gravity, which means heaviness in Latin. On July 5th, 1687 Newton formally expressed his law of universal gravitation in series of books called The Principia.

• The life of Issac Newton

• Issac Newton studies the Earth's forces

• A falling apple inspired Newton to think about gravity

• What do you get when you contemplate the universe.

IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA Nikola Tesla was an inventor and physicist who is best remembered for his contributions to the AC power system and radio, but he may have also built a death ray. At a 1937 luncheon in his honor, Tesla claimed to have created a weapon that could shoot a concentrated beam of energy capable of bringing down fleets of airplanes. He further claimed to have built, demonstrated, and used this weapon. When Tesla entered negotiations with the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to sell his device, Tesla claimed that one of these parties had sent people to break into his room and steal his invention, but that this theft was impossible since the blueprint for the weapon was entirely in his mind. Unfortunately, Tesla died with the blueprint in his mind before anyone could get one. On second thought, maybe that’s not such a bad thing

• Tesla may have built a death ray but he died before it could be completed

• Nikola Tesla's inventions were ahead of his time

• The inventor of the AC power

• The power of the "death ray"

Main idea is:

• A supporting detail

• The most important part or idea of the story.

• What the author thinks

• The most interesting part of the story

What are supporting details?

• Details that explain and prove the main idea

• What each character does throughout the story

• The whole idea of the story

• Details that explain the author's opinions

What can help find the main idea?

• The names of each character

• The first and last sentence of the story

• The author's name