Valentine's Day Close Reading Mystery Inference Activity - Secret Admirer
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This Valentine’s Day 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 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.
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 included in our best-selling full-year program:
Included In This Valentine's Day Close Reading Activity:
➡️ PowerPoint Presentation: 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 sending the Valentine's Day chocolates.
➡️ “Who Delivered the Chocolates?” 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 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?” 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.
➡️ PowerPoint Presentation: 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 sending the Valentine's Day chocolates.
➡️ “Who Delivered the Chocolates?” 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 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?” 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 Valentine's Day Close Reading Activity Works:
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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.
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Use the presentation 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.
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Hand out all the evidence to students and allow them time to make their predictions and inferences and solve the mystery.
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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.
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!
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