Inferencing is a skill that only develops with practice so the more tools in a teacher’s toolbox the better! In a previous post I spoke about an image reveal activity that I use to have students ask what’s happening in this photo? And how do they know? Here’s another option for using receipts to practice inference skills in your classroom to help students develop their inference skills.
Finding Receipts
First step is to collect receipts from grocery shopping. Put a call out to teachers in your building to collect their receipts. The more the better. When I’m shopping I have been known to deliberately group products into smaller orders to create some focused receipts but this is not necessary. Short on receipts? A quick online search of “grocery receipt” will yield lots of results that can be printed and used in a pinch.
Use this free template with built-in instructions to add your receipt. Glue or tape one receipt to the template.
Putting it into Practice
From here you can either distribute them to individual students or create a gallery of receipts around the room so students get up and move to a spot for their own receipt.
Students review the contents of the receipt – items, timing, payment method, etc. – and use this information to build a character profile.
For example, if someone bought a kale salad, 4-pack of yoghurt, and a small amount of bulk jujubes at 8 pm on a Friday and paid with a credit card, what does this say about them?
Taking a Next Step
From here students can pass their sheets to another student or rotate to another stop in the room to add to a different receipt. I like to do this shift 2-3 times. This allows students to see what others might have accomplished in a different way. Then you can have students return to their original receipt and write up their findings. A sticky note is a great option for this to keep students’ summaries of their characters succinct. Ask for 2-3 sentences to share who the person is based on their receipt. Have students attach their sticky note to their receipt and submit it for review.
The teacher review ensures accountability and works as a quick assessment to see who needs more support or practice with the skill.
Looking for more activities to practice inference skills, then check out the selection of options here.
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