Drawing Conclusions: Day 1

Through assessing and listening to my students, I discovered that we still need to brush up on our literary skills. This week, I decided we would start with inferring and drawing conclusions. It was pretty obvious that these students would need something a little different. If the first (hundred) times didn't work, this time wasn't going to either. I decided to incorporate a variety of teaching strategies to hopefully help them understand!

First, we started off with this anchor chart I created. Sorry about the picture quality, I took it with my phone. I'm going to have to remember to bring my camera to my classroom!

Notice the faucet on the anchor chart? Wondering what that means? I used the faucet as an analogy to represent how the trickling water represents how an author gives us information. They don't always give us all the details (a steady water stream), so sometimes we have to use what the author gives us (the text) and what we already know to help us draw conclusions. I told them our conclusion represents the puddle of water that comes together (from the water trickle). Just like the way our schema and what the text says comes together to make meaning for us.

We then quickly reviewed schema.

After we discussed our anchor charts and answered questions, we watched a Pixar short film. The students loved the video and thought it was hilarious! 

As you can see, the kids had their total attention on the short film!

We did a cold watch, warm watch, and a hot watch! Each time we discussed the short film a little further and what our thoughts/conclusions were. During the short film, I had the students reflect on the following questions I had written on the board. Normally, I would have made a handout with the students, but I figured I had planned enough for them! LOL 

I did have a handout they used to record their observations and then their conclusions. I will include it later today for you to use if you would like. 

You can download the handout HERE!
The kids really enjoyed this lesson, and I did, too!