5 Note-Taking Activities for Kids

Looking for note-taking activities for elementary students? Note-taking can be a tricky task for elementary students.  As they learned to read they were taught to find and copy the answer from the text.  Now we are asking them to find key ideas for notes.  

The goal in note-taking is to start small.  Use a paragraph, then advance to more. The tricky thing with elementary students is that when they learn to identify the main idea and text evidence, they are taught to underline the ENTIRE sentence.  It is important when taking notes for research that students realize they do not need that entire sentence. They need the important ideas, words, or phrases.

Here are fun note-taking activities to help students identify the key phrases:

Found Poetry

Found poetry allows students to identify the key words in the passage and then arrange them into a poem about the topic.  You can have students highlight the keywords and then write them out on another piece of paper or they can use scissors and glue to allow the students to cut the words straight from the article.  Read this article to learn how to teach this STEP by STEP.

Another twist on this is Black Out Poetry, where students use sharpies or black markers to cross out the words that are NOT important.  

Tweeting Notes

Students are asked to take notes, but like Twitter, they have a limit to the number of characters.  You can follow the guide of 240 characters or choose your own word limit.  This will challenge them to not copy word for word.  (Side note: This paragraph is 275 characters).  

Bookmarks

There are only so many words that will fit on this little nugget.  The goal is for students to identify the most important words. At the end of the lesson, have them review what they learned in small groups.  They can share what they read using the notes on the bookmark. Since the space is limited, they will have to reduce the notes to the really important items.  You may want to give them a goal with the number of notes they should take.  

Guess My Notes

Turn note-taking into a game with Guess My Notes.  Give students a passage that you have already read and taken notes on.  Have the students try to guess your notes.  They will read the passage and jot down notes on the passage.  You may want to tell them exactly how many notes you took.  Students will then try to see if they guessed your notes.  

You could switch this as well and show them your notes and see if they can guess the topic of what you read.  Have them discuss your notes.  Did you copy full sentences?  Did you give enough information to use in telling someone about the topic?  This would make a great main idea lesson too! 

Biopoems

Focus on note-taking with biographies.  I am amazed at how much kids LOVE biographies.  Grab some biographies from your school library and get them engaged.  The notes they take must be notes that will answer these questions in the biopoem.  

Click HERE to grab the Biopoem template.  

Note-taking activities are just one part of the research process. Help students learn how to go through the research process by breaking it down into simple language. I like to use a research journal to help guide students through the steps and help them organize their notes and sources as they learn.

Using Bookcreator and creating Google Sites are great ways for students to use a variety of resources and digital tools to share what they learned through research.