Are you looking for a fun, high interest activity to teach students to make inferences or predictions? The Mystery Box activity is sure to engage your learners, while helping them use simple clues to infer and predict. It's also a great way to introduce a lesson, share new content, or begin a new thematic unit. It can be used with ANY content area or subject. Inferencing has never been so fun!

Why do you NEED this activity in your classroom? It's fun and engaging and will help your students with making predictions and inferencing. There is minimal prep and it will have a big impact on their learning!

How Does this Inferencing Activity Work?

First, you'll need a small box (I use a gable box) to create the Mystery Box. There are some included labels, though you don't have to use them. You'll place an object related to your unit of study or content into the box and come up with four clues (details) related to it without giving it away. Record the clues in the included worksheet.

Then, you'll share the box with your students and really talk up the mystery! Explain how they'll be using their best inferencing skills to determine what could be inside the box! You can shake it, pass it around, smell it - whatever they need to do to make a good guess and combine it with their current knowledge or schema. You'll then share the clues with them.

They can record the clues on the included inferring worksheet and make a guess about what's inside the Mystery Box! There are several follow-up activities included, too, to extend the lesson.

I promise, using the Mystery Box in your classroom is sure to provide a high interest inferencing activity that all student will be intrigued by. This increased engagement will help support their learning!

Included in this printable are:

• 2 pages of Mystery Box Templates that can be printed, cut out, and used on a ANY kind of box! {You don't have to use all of them :)
• 1 page of Clue Cards
• 5 Mystery Box Response Sheets
• 1 page sample Mystery Box pictures
• 3 pages Sample Lesson Plan with pictures

♥︎Teachers will love how much fun they have using the Mystery Box and getting their students instantly 'hooked' into new content.

♥︎Students will love - and I mean LOVE - the element of mystery!

What teachers are saying about this resource...

"My students loved this activity! They could do this for hours! It was so fun to see them all working together as a team to figure out the clues. I had my students in table groups and it worked out very well. Thanks so much for a very fun and interesting cooperative learning activity. For cooperative learning I used some random objects and created 4 mystery bags. I did this activity with 1st and 2nd graders. The items I used were a pink eraser, a mouse, Cat in the Hat, and a snake. Example: for the eraser my clues were - I'm found in every classroom, I make things disappear, sometimes I get lost, I'm very helpful if you make a mistake. So much fun!" - Buyer

If you like this activity, you might also like the follow high interest student activities:

Teaching Descriptive Writing with Pop Rocks

Teaching Adjectives and Verbs with Popcorn

Vocabulary Activities with Any Word List

Making Predictions with the Candy Corn Bandit

Making Inferences with a Snow Day Investigation

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