Do you know how much you can learn about someone by going through their trash?
Follow me here for a minute. I promise I’m not going to actually encourage you to dig through your neighbor’s trash; though that worked out well for Cam Jansen in Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery. I digress.
Last week on the blog and on our social media accounts – Facebook, Instagram and Threads – I spent a lot of time talking about inferring. If you missed it you really should go back and read the post because it lays the foundation for what I’m about to describe. Quick recap for those of you who read the post last week.
Text Clues + Schema = Inference
Great, now that we’re all on the same page and we are remembering that each inference has two pieces, let’s talk about one of the most fun ways to encourage our children to make inferences and to support those inferences with evidence – trash cans! Yes, back to the dumpster diving or more accurately trash collection.
A few days after I introduce inferring each year, I use a lesson that encourages putting schema and clues together. Before the boys get up in the morning, I fill a Kroger bag with a few “trash items.” The first bag almost always contains, an empty bottle of Tylenol – I pour the pills into something else and put them back in the medicine cabinet until we are finished with the activity – crumpled tissues and empty can of chicken noodle soup.
Then when it is time for our comprehension lesson, I put the bag in the middle of the table and tell the boys to pretend that I pulled the items out of the neighbor’s trash can on the last trash night – we usually do this on a Monday and so trash night was the night before making the smallest ones always wonder if I really did go to the neighbor’s house. I give them each disposable gloves and tell them to inspect the contents.
After a bit of inspecting, I ask them what they can infer about our “neighbor.” It doesn’t take long for someone to mention that the neighbor must be sick. Next, it is time to ask how they figured it out. Usually someone will mention that Tylenol brings down a fever and tissues show a stuffed up nose. Every now and then someone will remember that when they have a cold or the flu we always reach for chicken noodle soup – though if I’m honest they wouldn’t associate a can with soup since we typically start from scratch.
Once we have been through this whole bit, I praise them for their inferring and defense skills. They are usually surprised to find how easy it was to infer and defend their inference once all they had to do was focus on the evidence and what it was trying to tell them. I go on to connect this to the “AHA!” moments in books when you just know that the author is telling you something without actually telling you. Finally we read a book together and share all of the inferences we can as we are going.
If you children are anything like my boys, they won’t be happy with just one bag of trash so we often repeat this activity every morning for a week. Below are a few other ideas in case your kids are like mine and want to keep at it. Also, if you don’t want to actually create bags of if you want a worksheet type thing for your child to work on alone, you could use my Inferring Trashcans resource from Teachers Pay Teachers – it’s only a dollar.
Inferring has many components and can creep into our thinking in many ways so over the next few weeks we will be unpacking the ways in which inferring changes how we read and understand what we are reading. Keep in the loop by joining the email list and following Smart Simple Homeschool on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Threads. These groups get special exclusive content each and every week as this is where I really unpack the nuts and bolts of how to make learning these strategies fun. I also regularly share homeschooling tips and tricks as well as funny stories from our homeschooling journey with these communities. Until next time, keep it smart. Keep it simple
Other Bag Ideas
- party streamers, paper plates, cookie crumbles and melted candles (party)
- crumpled paper, colorful paper towel, messy table cloth (painting)
- carrot tops, potato peels, bloody Styrofoam tray, empty beef stock carton (ate beef stew)
- pants with holes in the knee, child’s shoes size 12, broken toys (Mom is cleaning or the house has a young child who is growing)
- diapers, baby food pouches, disposable bib (there is a baby or toddler in the house)
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