Valentine's Day Close Reading Mystery Digital Inference Activity Secret Admirer
Digital Download
This Valentine’s Day close reading digital 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 as a Valentine's Day activity, but it can be used within any classroom at any time of the year.
Patricia dreads going to school on Valentine's Day. She finds Cupid's holiday to be an annoying and excessive demonstration of romance, of which she has none in her life. However, walking into class that morning, Patricia is surprised to discover a mysterious heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on her desk. Your students need to help Patricia figure out who sent her these chocolates.
This is a Google-compatible activity, and students complete all the work on the computer. This works well with distance learning, 1:1 classrooms, remote teaching, Google Classroom, or for online education.
Patricia dreads going to school on Valentine's Day. She finds Cupid's holiday to be an annoying and excessive demonstration of romance, of which she has none in her life. However, walking into class that morning, Patricia is surprised to discover a mysterious heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on her desk. Your students need to help Patricia figure out who sent her these chocolates.
This is a Google-compatible activity, and students complete all the work on the computer. This works well with distance learning, 1:1 classrooms, remote teaching, Google Classroom, or for online education.
This is included in our best-selling full-year reading program:
Included In This Digital Valentine's Day Close Reading Activity:
➡️ Google Slides Presentation: This 15-slide Google Slides presentation guides the mystery with the backstory, evidence, and detailed explanations for why each suspect is innocent and why the secret admirer is guilty of sending the Valentine's Day chocolates.
➡️ Original Narrative Backstory: Use this short story to set up and initiate the mystery, with clues hidden within the text!
➡️ A Variety of Digital Clues and Evidence: These require students to close read and use their inference skills. There is a literary terms quiz, text messages, an anti-Valentine’s Day dance poster, a class note, an excuse note from the dentist, a class seating chart, an email, a detention letter, and a social media message.
➡️ “Who Delivered the Chocolates?” Digital 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.
➡️ Google Slides Presentation: This 15-slide Google Slides presentation guides the mystery with the backstory, evidence, and detailed explanations for why each suspect is innocent and why the secret admirer is guilty of sending the Valentine's Day chocolates.
➡️ Original Narrative Backstory: Use this short story to set up and initiate the mystery, with clues hidden within the text!
➡️ A Variety of Digital Clues and Evidence: These require students to close read and use their inference skills. There is a literary terms quiz, text messages, an anti-Valentine’s Day dance poster, a class note, an excuse note from the dentist, a class seating chart, an email, a detention letter, and a social media message.
➡️ “Who Delivered the Chocolates?” Digital 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 Digital Valentine's Day Close Reading Activity Works:
-
When students enter, put them in pairs or small groups, so they can work together to try to solve the mystery.
-
Use the Google Slides to guide you through each element of the activity. The slides will help you introduce the story and evidence to each of the groups.
-
Share the digital files with students that include the evidence students must examine. Allow them time to make their predictions and inferences and solve the mystery.
-
Once each group has made their final prediction, use the Google slides to reveal the guilty party and go through each of the suspects to show the evidence of their innocence or guilt.
Included In This Valentine's Day Close Reading Activity:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students had interim testing the entire week of V-day, so they loved trying to solve this mystery after the fact. The story was engaging and they had to practice critical thinking and making inferences as well.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students love these activities and this one in particular for middle schoolers is really fun to do! They enjoy being an investigator.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I love these reading mysteries and this one was so much fun, not only for my kids, but for me as well!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students had interim testing the entire week of V-day, so they loved trying to solve this mystery after the fact. The story was engaging and they had to practice critical thinking and making inferences as well.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students love these activities and this one in particular for middle schoolers is really fun to do! They enjoy being an investigator.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I love these reading mysteries and this one was so much fun, not only for my kids, but for me as well!
If you like this resource, you'll also like this reading mystery: