It's been a long time....

I can't believe it has almost been a year since my last post! Life hasn't allowed for me to blog regularly. I think I am going to make more of an effort to write something... maybe once a month. I have a toddler who is 2 1/2. He is very active and takes up so much of my time. I also had a baby in October. She is beautiful, happy, and healthy. She is all that we could have asked for. She also has taken up so much of my time.

My classes have been working on making inferences and drawing conclusions. This is one of the most fun units we work on all year. I know I already blogged about my lessons last year. We did add a few activities. My favorite came from The Inspired Apple. I worked on this activity with second graders. The LOVED it. I used a magnifying glass first to infer as a whole group. Then next week, the students had to infer on their own. I put two golf balls inside the wooden mystery box. I gave them 4 written clues and a sound clue.  They used the bubble map to write their guesses. After the final clue they had to write down what they thought they mystery item was, what clues helped them make their inference, and any schema that they may have about the item. Like I said, they LOVED this.

In my school we have a window display in our classroom. I took the Norman Rockwell inference activity a step further this year. The students 3-5 were allowed to infer with the 10 pictures in my window. I just opened Norman Rockwell books, which I borrowed from the library, to some interesting pictures. They had to study the picture clues and write an inference. They left their inference in a box which also sat in the window display.  They enjoyed writing me a little note. The inferences that were well written... a complete sentence, a clue that helped them, and their schema... were hung next to the display. Kids just like to have their work displayed in class.

Our next unit is author's purpose and how characters change throughout a story. I'm excited to talk about character change. Some books we are using... Ruthie and the (not so teeny) Tiny Lie by Laura Rankin and Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg. I plan on blogging on the highlights of this unit when I'm done.

Thanks for reading!