Easy Halloween inferencing activities & reading comprehension practice
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 used two of my favorite Halloween poems to practice our inferring skills together! These Halloween inferencing activities are easy, low prep and highly engaging for kids!
introducing inferring to kids
On the very RARE occasion that my husband and I get brave enough to take all 5 kids to a restaurant, we play “I Spy” while we wait for food. I might say, “I spy with my little eyes something…red!” And our 12 year old and twin 5 year olds have to listen to my color word–red–and then look for things around them that they already know are red and see if they can INFER what I’m spying.
Yep. On the simplest level, “I Spy” is an inferencing game. Kids LOVE inferring. It feels like detective work. And they naturally infer about the world around them.
But for good reading comprehension, this skill has to be exercised. It has to be practiced and refined so that it can be applied to reading a text. And as kids get older, we want them to be able to point to the evidence in the text that leads to their inference.
In first grade, we start by introducing what inferring is using this digital slideshow.
(Click the video above to watch a preview of this entire Halloween inferencing slideshow.)
We chart the two things that make an inference: schema and text evidence. And then, we make a sentence frame to use while we are practicing inferring. This is the older inferencing anchor chart we have used.
This is a newer digital version of the same inferencing anchor chart.
Inferring Activities with Poems
We use two poems for our Halloween inferencing activities: Who Am I? and Halloween. I love each of these because both are themed for October and Halloween, but one of them is about the characteristics of animals which is perfect for the animals unit we are working on in October.
In the Who Am I? poem, we read the text together and then they talk with partners about which animal the poem is talking about. Then, we highlight the clues from the text that we used to make our inference.
In the Halloween poem, we read one couplet at a time and then Think-Pair-Share our inferences about each costume.
It’s always so fun listening to kids’ inferences about the Halloween costumes and defend their ideas. Once, 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! You can find all of these activities and more in this Halloween inferencing activities packet.
