Inferencing a la Rachael Ray

We've been having a lot of fun practicing our inference skills in third grade.  Inferencing has always been tricky, so we decided to switch things up a little.  We started by using The Inspired Apple's activity called, What's in My Teacher's Bag.  It was SO CUTE!  Check it out HERE  if you want to try it.  Our kiddos loved it and came up with some really strong inferences.  Our personal favorite is below:

Um, my teacher makes herself beautiful with lipstick.  Aw!
A+ for him!

This week we tried another inference investigation.  We got the idea from Rachael Ray's talk show.  Have yall ever seen her guess the Mystery Taster?   Check one out here!

Here is how we did our version of The Mystery Guest.  Each day our class received a letter from a faculty member.  They were given 3 clues in the letter.  Using schema and the clues, the class narrowed down the mystery guest's identity.  Then, we came up with five yes or no questions for the guest.  After receiving the answers to the questions, we made a final guess.  Each afternoon at 2:45 there was a knock at the door and the mystery guest's identity was revealed!  Our kiddos were bouncing out of their seats each day!  Some of them were squealing!  It has been a ton of fun to listen to them discuss the clues and narrow down the choices.

Here is an anchor chart that Emily made for our little unit.

How do you teach inferencing?

Thanks for reading!  Have a great week!