Easter Close Reading Mystery Inference Activity - Who Stole the Easter Eggs?
Easter Close Reading Mystery Inference Activity - Who Stole the Easter Eggs?: This Easter close reading inference mystery activity is a fun way to engage your students and challenge them to look for text evidence, infer information, and read more closely. The resource includes everything you need to facilitate the activity in your classroom. This works well around Easter; however, it can also be used at any point in the year!
Grandma Ann is hosting a special Easter celebration for her family. Each year, her three beloved grandchildren visit for the Easter egg hunt. Just as the festivities are about to begin, Ann notices that the Easter eggs she hid masterfully hid around the house are now missing from their hiding spots. Someone stole the Easter eggs, and your students need to find out who did it.
Included In This Easter Close Reading Inference Activity:
➡️ Presentation Slides: This 15-slide PowerPoint presentation guides the mystery with the backstory, evidence, and detailed explanations for why each suspect is innocent and why the person is guilty of taking the Easter eggs.
➡️ “Who Stole the Easter Eggs?” Classroom Poster: Put this poster up on your classroom door or somewhere visible so that when students come in, they are hooked into the activity.
➡️ Original Narrative Backstory: Use this short story to set up and initiate the mystery, with clues hidden within the text!
➡️ A Variety of Clues and Evidence: These require students to close read and use their inference skills. There is an e-invitation, an upholstery cleaning service work order, a childcare list of instructions, a social media group, a veterinarian medical report, a text message, a video game chat room, a social media post, and a social media message.
➡️ “Who Stole the Easter Eggs?” Graphic Organizer: Students can use this to keep track of their findings that support or refute different suspects in the mystery.
➡️ Teacher Answer Key: This is made available in print format and within the presentation slideshow to make reviewing students’ work a breeze.
How The Easter Close Reading Inference Activity Works:
- Start by putting up the poster on your door to build anticipation when students enter the room. When students enter, put them in small groups, so they can work together to try to solve the mystery.
- Use the presentation slides to guide you through each element of the inference activity. The slides will help you introduce the story and evidence to each of the groups.
- Hand out all the evidence to students and allow them time to make their predictions and inferences and solve the mystery.
- Once each group has made their final prediction, use the presentation slides to reveal the culprit and go through each of the suspects to show the evidence of their innocence or guilt.
What Teachers Are Saying About The Easter Close Reading Activity:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students loved this! I asked them for evidence as to why the person did it and also why they could not have done it to tie in to our lesson on counterclaims for argumentative. As one kid said, "you're giving us something fun so we don't realize we are learning again, aren't you?". He's not wrong!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I absolutely LOVE these activities - and so do my students! I print the handout front/back and have my students give textual evidence to support both for & against it being each suspect. They LOVE solving mysteries. This is my third one purchased.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students ADORE any of these mystery activities! They really get into being the first one to figure everything out. It's also a great way for them to practice some of the skills less practiced on the daily worksheet-type assessments.
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