The wood frog freezes solid in winter and hops away in spring, and this 4-page 3rd grade reading passage explains how. Students choose the main idea of the whole text, state the main idea of paragraph 2 in their own words, and pull key details about what happens to the frog's body. Later questions ask what the antifreeze-like sugar does and how the frog hopping away "completely healthy" supports the main idea. It targets RI.3.2, with a full answer key.
RI.3.2
“Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.”
Questions 1 and 2 on the main idea of the text and of one paragraph, questions 3 to 5 on key details, and question 8 on how a detail supports the main idea.
A three-paragraph science passage. The frog burrows under dead leaves, its heart stops beating, and special sugar in its blood keeps its cells from breaking.
Question 1 gives four choices, including one about bears sleeping in dens. Question 2 asks for the main idea of paragraph 2.
Students say where the frog goes as it gets colder, write two details about its frozen body, and mark true or false for whether its heart keeps beating.
Question 6 asks what the sugar does, question 7 asks for an exact sentence from paragraph 3, and question 8 asks how a detail supports the main idea.
Paragraph by paragraph
Read one paragraph at a time and have students write a three-word summary in the margin. Those notes make question 2 much easier.
Distractor talk
Option A in question 1 is true, since the passage does say bears sleep in dens. Talk about why a true detail is still not the main idea.
Winter animals unit
Pair it with a unit on how animals survive winter. It takes about 30 minutes, and question 6 is a good place to explain what antifreeze does in a car.
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