Project Spotlight: Let's Infer!

This instructor-led lesson introduces first grade students to the concept of inference through story and hands-on activities. 

• Skills: Instructional Design,  Developmental Learning Practices, Classroom Management

• Audience: First grade students 

• Final Deliverables: Lesson Plan, Worksheet, Instructor Slides

• Year: 2026

Customer

The customer is a small elementary school located in Maryland with students ranging in age from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade. I was asked to design and teach a 30 - 60 minute lesson on a first grade language arts topic of my choosing. I chose inference. It would be a new skill, and the lesson could be designed to include references to current events (the Artemis II mission was in progress), and hands-on activities to engage students.

Design

I began by writing the lesson plan, and its activities. I then researched NASA and Christina Koch, and believed this would be a fun tie-in because of the excitement of the Artemis II mission. I then designed the slides to use in class. I used a pre-designed template from Slides Go, but wrote all content, and designed all slide layouts. Finally, I drafted the worksheet. 

Process

At the start of the lesson, I defined inference, and what it means to make an inference. I then used an image of a teacher reading to her students, with no context. I let students attempt to make inferences based solely on the image. They used items in the background, as well as facial expressions of students, to guess about how students were feeling, and what they might be learning about in school. 

After students successfully made inferences about the single image, we moved on to a group of images on an “Instagram” feed. I asked students to review the combination of photos, and infer information about the person’s job. The photos were taken from NASA’s coverage of the Artemis II mission, and when combined, the images focused on Astronaut Christina Koch.

Students were particularly good at using the combination of photos to make educated guesses or inferences about where the person worked, the science the person studied, and their mission. While they did not know Christina Koch’s name, they were able to infer that she was an astronaut with NASA who had recently flown to the moon. As an add on, to learn a bit more about her, I showed a short video produced by NASA on Christina Koch. 

I then gave students a worksheet. I told them that we’d soon be reading a book together, but first they’d need to infer the topic of the book based on a new set of images.

Students inferred that the book was going to take place in a forest or on a hike, and they were correct. As a class, we then read “Hike” by Pete Oswald - a fabulous and completely text-free picture book. We gathered on the reading carpet, and students volunteered to “read” each spread - using inference skills to determine what was happening based on the pictures in the book.

As a cool down to close out the lesson, I wrote and shared “Who am I?” riddles to solve. Each riddle had 4 facts about a person, place, or thing I wanted them to guess. Through a combination of the 4 facts, students were to infer the person, place, or thing.

Results

Students seemed to enjoy the lesson, and the variety of activities presented. Through a review of their worksheets and their participation in the lesson, I found that students were engaged, and actively retained what it means to infer and how it can be used in everyday life.