Are you looking for a fun and engaging activity for your back-to-school lesson plans? I have a great option! In fact, it’s an activity that helps students practice a challenging skill without realizing they’re hard at work. In this post, I’m going to share a fun back-to-school inferencing activity that is a great way to welcome your students to a new year of learning.
The Importance of Practicing Inferences
Making inferences – “reading between the lines” – is drawing conclusions based on information provided. This is an important element of reading comprehension! Many authors don’t come right out and say something in a story. Instead, there are clues that readers can use to determine what is happening in the story, how a character is feeling, or why certain choices are being made.
Even students in kindergarten can benefit from stretching their inference muscles! Since clues are at the heart of making inferences, I love to use detective activities to help students practice this skill. The inferencing activity I’m sharing in this post is perfect for the beginning of the school year because it has a back-to-school theme.
The School Tool Mystery
This mystery begins when the class is given a case file from the Inference Detectives. Cleo is trying to figure out which of six different school tools her teacher wants to use: Scissors, markers, pencil, glue, crayons, or paper.
The detectives have gathered up pictures of the school tools Cleo has available to her, but the class needs to figure out which one Cleo’s teacher wants. Also included in the case file are clues that point to a specific tool. In order to solve this mystery, students will need to use the clues to rule out the majority of the tools so they can make an inference.
By the time the class has finished going through the clues, students will be able to identify the correct school tool even though it wasn’t named directly in the case file. This is inferring!
Step One: Introduce the School Tools
This activity creates the perfect opportunity to review school tool expectations and procedures with your class. As you take the school tool pictures out of the case file, you can name and describe each one. Then, you can take a moment to review with your students the things they do and don’t do with that school tool.
For example, when you pull out the scissors card from the case file, you can talk about the materials that students can and can’t cut with scissors. You can also talk about how to handle and store them safely.
Background knowledge is an important component of making inferences, so this review of school tools will also help the activity be more meaningful to your students. This will activate their background knowledge and get them ready for the activity.
Step Two: Read the Clues
Inside the case file is a set of numbered clues. In kindergarten, you can read the clues to your students, one at a time. (Since this is at the beginning of the school year, it’s a great time to practice counting in order to figure out which clue number needs to be opened first, second, and so on.)
After reading the clue out loud to the class, students can discuss which school tool they can rule out based on the clue. Students will have a recording sheet with all of the school tools listed across the top. As each tool is ruled out, students will cross it off.
Step Three: Make an Inference
Once all of the clues have been read, it’s time to make an inference! Students can draw a picture of the school tool that they think Cleo’s teacher wants. They can use the picture at the top of the recording sheet as a reference to help them draw if needed.
Step Four: Write About It
The final part of this activity is for students to share their inferences in writing. Students will write about why they are inferring that this particular school tool is the one Cleo’s teacher wants.
Since it is the beginning of the year, writing this sentence might be challenging for students, especially kindergarteners. You might have your students verbally share their thoughts with a partner instead. They can use their illustrations as a reference to help them summarize their reasoning.
As I’ve shared before, you don’t need to stress that kindergarten students form words and sentences at the beginning of the year. They will grow by leaps and bounds through interactive writing and writers workshop as the year progresses! This will happen without asking students to copy sentences.
Sharing their thoughts verbally and through illustrations will help students become more comfortable with expressing themselves in writing. If they only ever copy sentences that you write, they will become more dependent on you to help them come up with what they should be writing.
Step Five: Continue Practicing Inferences
This inferencing activity is just the beginning! You can continue to help your students practice making inferences throughout your daily routine. One of my favorite ways to do this is with engaging read-alouds.
Your students might also love to do another Inferencing Detectives activity during the fall months! The Case of the Missing Apples is perfect for September or October.
Printable Back-to-School Inferencing Activity
I have put together a printable resource with everything you need to do this inferencing activity with your class at the beginning of the school year. It includes all of the printable clues and visuals, along with clue labels and the recording sheet.
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this resource, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save This Inferencing Activity for the Beginning of the Year
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this fun inferencing activity when you’re working on your lesson plans for the beginning of the year.
