January 9, 2013

Inferring, Compare/Contrast, and a Giveaway!



Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper made it to 300 followers and she's having a ginormous giveaway.  I'm one of the people that is helping her out... now if that's not enough reason to click the link above, I don't know what is!

So what did we do in school today?  During Reading we discussed inferences and we did the Pinterest idea of discussing the contents of my purse.  I forgot to take a picture of the anchor chart we made.  Here's what they came up with though: 

Contents of Mrs. S' Purse
What - Why is it important?
*phone - make calls, emergencies, use timer
*wallet - need drivers license to drive, need inside cards to go buy stuff
*keys - need to drive to school and go home, need to be able to open the house door
*sharpie marker - because I'm a teacher, need permanent marker
*Yoda toy - because I'm a mom, entertain my kids

Overall they pretty much got the point that they need to take the "facts" and add their schema to figure out why things are important.  

I got a kick out of the fact that they think every teacher carries a sharpie around with them.  Do you have one in your purse?  I have one in my purse since I label my boys' drinks, snacks, toys, etc when we are out and about with their initial.  Anyhow, the entire point of it was for them to be able to take the text of our story and compare/infer about the two sisters. 


This week we are reading "The Bridge Dancers".  I have to be honest - I'm SICK of doing Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast information.... doesn't help that this week we have done Venn Diagrams in Math as well.  

So instead we made picture frames of our 2 main characters - the sisters - and we pretended that we were creating pictures for the girls' mama (since all mommies love pictures of their children).  We folded our paper and drew 2 picture frames, then they drew a quick sketch of the 2 girls.  In each box they had to infer and write the contrasting information, and on the frame itself they wrote the similar information for the girls.  They worked by themselves and with partners, and then we went through the story together to make sure we had all the information.  It was a really fun lesson, and one that I know stuck with them.  

Hope you had a good day!
Photobucket

11 comments:

  1. Yay!! Thank you so much for the shout out and helping out with my giveaway:)
    I LOVE the picture frame idea that you had your students use for compare/contrast. I'm sure the students had fun with it!
    ~Holly
    Fourth Grade Flipper

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They did and the information seemed to stick. Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  2. So sick of Venn Diagrams! I've had to get inventive too. I love this idea :)

    Ashley
    Primary Teacherhood

    ReplyDelete
  3. My Sharpie is in my car since I have a two-year-old that likes to dig in my purse :)

    Diane
    Fifth in the Middle

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My 2 year old doesn't dig anymore, and it's stuck in a side pocket. Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  4. Yep - I have a sharpie that lives in my purse. It's the best thing for writing notes on my hand :) It doesn't wash off for a day or so so I'll definitely remember what I want to remember. I love the inference idea with the purse and the frames (much more interesting than Venn diagrams!)
    Lynn
    FunintheFours

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yep, I have a Sharpie in my purse too!! That's just funny!! I love the purse idea and the picture frames!

    I use an H to compare and contrast. A block H so they write differences in the two long parts of the letter and the similarities in the middle. (I got tired of the Venn too!) :O)

    Amanda
    Collaboration Cuties

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this idea! I am sick of venn diagrams, too, and frankly, the kids get sick of them, too!

    ReplyDelete

I hope this was able to help you in some way. I love comments and I like to reply via email. Please make sure your profile is set up with your email address (and that it's not a noreply-comment@blogger.com). Have a great day!