Author - Rivka Danziger
Category - Lesson Plans, English, Reading, Reading Comprehension
Lesson Plan Duration - 15 minute(s)
Grade Level - 3-5,6-8,esl

Lesson Plan Description

An group activity to improve inference skills. Students will learn to use their own experiences to infer feelings of characters.

Primary Learning Objective(s):

Students learn to connect to the text and infer the character's feelings by thinking about similar experiences

Additional Learning Objective(s):

This activity can be used as a social skills lesson to teach the skill of empathy and to help students understand appropriate and inappropriate behaviors

Procedures/Activities:

Each student receives a popsicle stick with the words "Hey, I know that when..." on one side and "It must be that..." on the other side.

6 student volunteers each fill out one of the "Describe a time" cards. Make sure students give a scenario but DO NOT use a feeling word.

Students take turns reading "Describe a time" cards and classmates respond by guessing the feeling using the popsicle stick to guide them

Example:

Student A: "I noticed my two-year old brother playing Bop-It and he scored 59!"

Student B: (Using his popsicle stick) "I know that when I saw my baby sister pour herself cereal and milk by herself I felt shocked, so It must be that Student A felt shocked when he saw his baby brother play a grown-up game and do a good job"

***Teacher should model 1-2 scenarios before having the students try

 Immediately follow this activity by reading a story and having students raise their popsicle stick to infer feelings based on their experience

Materials/Equipment:

  • popsicle sticks (one for each student in the class/group)
  • "Hey I Know" template for popsicle sticks(see attached) copied on cardstock
  • "Describe a Time" cards (see attached)
  • masking/scotch tape to fasten "Hey I know..." and "It must be that" cards onto popsicle sticks

Assessment Guidelines:

Students will be given short passages from a story and asked to infer the character's feelings based on a similar situation that they were in