Most kids like to laugh, so why not introduce them to poetry through a website such as Giggle Poetry? Giggle Poetry and similar sites feature humorous poetry written by students. Although it's possible to teach the main idea of a poem using more serious content, funny poetry is far more engaging to most kindergarten through fifth-grader students because they can relate to the authors and understand their points of view.
The best way to teach is to model your thinking and actions: Read the title. Be sure to mention that the title may or may not indicate the main idea. Read the entire poem aloud. Think aloud of what the poem's main subject may be and why you think so. Say that you are now looking for information about what the subject does or what happens to it. Let students know what you discover. Use the information you've gathered to draw a conclusion about the main idea of the poem.
Display a poem and ask questions about it that require your students to think before answering. Don't ask simple questions that can be answered with a yes or no. Avoid asking questions that require rote memory only. Ask questions that involve some type of creativity, evaluation and analyzing. For example, ask a child to analyze the poem to find the author's purpose for writing it. To be able to find the purpose, the student must be able to understand the main idea.
Display another poem and ask the students to respond to the answers to these questions: What are the four steps to finding the main idea of a poem? What is the main idea of the poem on the board? What words or phrases give evidence of your answer? To evaluate the lesson, give the students a poem and request that they write the main idea and the words or phrases that prove their answers. Finding the main idea of a poem will help elementary students to comprehend more fully the more challenging sonnets and ballads that they will encounter later.