Halloween Inferencing Activity

During our animals unit, we have been talking a lot about "inferring" and how good readers infer while they read.  Since we usually do our animals unit in the fall, I use two of my favorite Halloween themed poems to practice our inferring skills together!

We made this anchor chart together...

Then, we practiced inferring with our poems.  We read a new poem each week using these routines {You can find my K-2 Poetry Pack HERE with all of my 40+ poems I use, literacy station materials for each, and focus lesson ideas}.

The two poems I choose for inferring over two weeks were Halloween and Who Am I?  Each of these are perfect for around Halloween time.  In each poem they had to infer what they author was talking about and then give evidence from the text to support their inference...totally Common Core stuff right there!  And, these firsties were fantastic!  

You can see in this poem below where they highlighted the details from the text to support their inferences.  And then illustrated their inferences in the margins.

I even had a first grader argue that the "vampire" costume was a cat, and site compelling evidence from the text to support her inference.  In fact, she was so compelling, that she had quite a following of agree-ers after she finished her argument! :)

As an extension to this poem, I have kids think about their halloween costume and tell or write a clue about their costume to share with their carpet partner and have their partner try to infer their own costume!

We LOVE inferring games in first grade!