Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday, so much so, that I chose it as the day for my upcoming wedding!
Valentine’s Day in the classroom can be chaotic with all of the candy and activities, but can also be tons of fun for the students. Using read alouds based on holidays is always an engaging way to facilitate learning and target student goals.
Read on to find out ways you can do this!
Use them as comprehension activities
If any of your students have comprehension goals, using read alouds is a great way to assess their comprehension. Comprehension can include retelling a story, identifying the setting, characters, problem and solution, identifying point of view, etc.
“When an elephant falls in love” by Alice Lotti and Davide Cali is a short story that can be used to work on and assess a variety of comprehension goals. I used this activity from the SSE Valentine’s Book Companions Bundle with my 4th grade students. They are working around a 2nd grade level, so this activity was a good match for them.
I played the story on Youtube two times, since it is so short. We then went over the vocabulary from the story and discussed what the words mean.
Next, we went over the events in the story. I had students recall the events that happened as the elephant fell in love. We also revisited the text if needed to use the pictures for support. The students then wrote the events in order. This allowed the students to practice skills like recalling, retelling, and sequencing.
Use them as writing activities
You can use any read aloud to create a writing extension activity. If students have writing goals, it can be helpful to have them first listen to a read aloud and then answer a writing prompt based on what was read.
One of my absolute favorite Valentine’s Day read alouds is “Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch” by Eileen Spinelli. The ending is so sweet, it makes me tear up every time I read it!
You can use this book, as well as other Valentine’s books, to facilitate a writing activity in your classroom. This activity pack from Teachers Pay Teachers includes a free writing prompt for students to write a note to someone they care about. Depending on the goal, age, and academic levels of your student, you can modify the expectations and supports given.
Use them as social-emotional activities
Valentine’s Day is all about love, not just romantic love, but love for family, friends, and yourself. If any of your students have social-emotional goals, this can be a great way to incorporate those.
“A Little Spot of Love” by Diane Alber is one example of many that can be used for social-emotional goals. You can discuss how to listen and be kind to others. Depending on the ages of your students, you can have them write about how to show love to others and/or themselves, identify positive feelings, etc.
“Love Monster” by Rachel Bright is another example of a wonderful read aloud to use to target SEL goals around Valentine’s Day. This book can be used to discuss accepting differences, being yourself, etc. You can find activities to go along with this book in the SSE activity pack mentioned above.
You can find tons of Valentine’s Day social-emotional activities on Teachers Pay Teachers for free that can easily be incorporated into any of these read alouds, such as this empathy activity using the story “The Invisible Boy” by Trudy Ludwig.
Valentine’s Day is a holiday that can be so much fun for all students in the classroom. By using read alouds, you can engage students and “trick” them into working on their goals! You can also read this SSE blog post to find other ideas for math goals, fine motor goals like tracing, etc. using Valentine’s read alouds.
Learn more about Valentine’s Day goals in Sabrina’s post here!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
