I can’t wait to share with you my 7 favorite Valentine read-alouds for first grade! If you love reading Valentine’s Day books to your students, then read on! I always read them with a purpose in mind with a specific objective, task, and activity in mind. It’s always important to know what purpose you want to achieve with each read-aloud.
If you’re like me, I love reading a mentor text for Reader’s Workshop, Writer’s Workshop, Math Workshop, Science and Social Studies! The more we can expose our students to different genres, authors, and academic vocabulary, the better readers and writers they will be!
9 Proven Results Why Reading Mentor Texts is Important:
Reading Mentor Texts daily help young students with:
1.) Language Development: Exposure to mentor texts helps children develop their language skills. They are exposed to a rich vocabulary, sentence structures, and various linguistic elements that contribute to language acquisition.
2.) Cognitive Development: Reading mentor texts enhances cognitive development by stimulating a child’s thinking processes. It encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, and comprehension skills as children engage with the content and make connections.
3.) Literacy Skills: Mentor texts serve as models for good writing and storytelling. Children learn about the structure of stories, the use of descriptive language, and the elements of plot, setting, and characters. This foundation contributes to the development of their literacy skills.
4.) Imagination and Creativity: Exposure to diverse mentor texts fuels a child’s imagination and creativity. It introduces them to different genres, styles, and perspectives, expanding their understanding of the world and encouraging creative thinking.
5.) Social and Emotional Development: Mentor texts often feature characters facing various challenges and emotions. Reading about these experiences helps children understand and navigate their feelings, fostering social and emotional development.6
6.) Building a Love for Reading: Reading mentor texts from an early age cultivates a love for reading. When children are exposed to enjoyable and engaging stories, they are more likely to develop a positive attitude toward reading, setting the foundation for a lifelong love of literature.
7.) Cultural Awareness: Mentor texts often reflect diverse cultures, traditions, and perspectives. Reading these texts exposes children to a variety of experiences, fostering cultural awareness, empathy, and an understanding of diversity.
8.) Parent-Child Bonding: Reading mentor texts together creates opportunities for positive parent-child interactions. Shared reading experiences strengthen the bond between caregivers and children and promote a positive attitude toward learning.
9.) Preparation for Academic Success: Early exposure to mentor texts is linked to academic success. Children who are exposed to a rich literary environment tend to perform better in language arts, reading, and writing tasks as they progress through their academic journey.
My 7 Favorite Valentine Read Alouds:
1.) Love Monster By Rachel Bright
2.) Valentine’s Day By: Anne Rockwell
3.) The Best Valentine Ever By Steven Kroll
4.) Queen of Hearts By: Mary Engelbreit
5.) The Day It Rained Hearts By: Felicia Bond
6.) My Heart is Like a Zoo By: Michael Hall
7.) One Heart A Valentine Counting Book By: Maryann Cocca-Leffler
1.) Love Monster- Using Adjectives and Visualizing
I adore this book! Love Monster is so cute and the students LOVE it! It’s actually a book that is new to me and I just ordered it! One activity that you could do with your students is to make a love monster and write adjectives about him: he’s sweet, fluffy, pink, loving, red, silly etc.
Your students can color their love monsters and write descriptive words. This craftivity would look super cute in your hallway! If you’re interested in checking out my Love Monster resource click here.
2.) Valentine’s Day- using a Personal Narrative
You gotta love Anne Rockwell! She’s written so many great books such as Valentine’s Day! This is such a great story about what Valentine’s Day means and how our actions affect others! You can have your students write a Personal Narrative about what Valentine’s Day means to them and color their self-portrait inside a heart.
Some students do not know what it means to be kind and how to use kind words- so this is perfect to help with that! If you’re interested in checking out my Valentine’s Day resource, click here.
3.) The Best Valentine Ever- using Theme.
This story from Steven Kroll has such a great message in it! It is perfect for teaching about the theme! I use a sentence stem with: Always… or Never… The students think about something that the character should always do and never do. This story is about two mice who argue over making a Valentine for their teacher and end up tearing it in half.
Then, they try to make their own Valentine, but it doesn’t turn out as good. In the end, they decide to make the biggest Valentine ever! If you’re interested in checking out my resource for The Biggest Valentine Ever, click here.
4.) Queen of Hearts- using Theme
Mary Englebreit wrote such a great story with such a great message about sharing and giving to others even though you have to give away something that you love. This is another great story to teach the theme using always and never.
If you’re not familiar with this story, the girl focuses so much time and energy decorating her Valentine box that she forgets to make her classmates their Valentine cards! She ends up taking all of her decorations off of her box to give back to her friends. If you’re interested in checking out my resource for Queen of Hearts, click here.
5.) The Day it Rained Hearts- using a Sequence of Events
Another great Valentine’s story is The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond. This is such an adorable story about a girl who uses the hearts that rained to make her Valentines for her friends and family. You can also use this book during math time because it has counting and math in it as well!
I LOVE making this craftivity using the hearts, umbrella, and clouds and they look super cute in your hallway! You could have your students write a sequence of events on their writing template. If you’re interested in checking out my resource for The Day It Rained Hearts, click here.
6.) My Heart is Like a Zoo- using Poetry!
Why not make a Valentine’s Zoo using different-sized hearts? Your students can pick an animal to create using hearts and then write about their animal. This story is super cute in that the author picked different animals made out of hearts to write poems about.
There’s an owl, cox, mouse, dog, cat, fish, and butterfly! What a fun craftivity for your students to make on Valentine’s Day! If you’re interested in checking out my resource about My Valentine Zoo, click here.
7.) One Heart: A Valentine Counting Book
If you love using literature for your math lesson, this Valentine’s book is perfect! This is a perfect counting book from 1-10! So, this is how I run my math lesson. I have my students sit on the carpet with their whiteboard and expo marker. We touch our schema and say “Why is the story about math?” They have to make inferences about the story if it has something to do with math. They write it on their whiteboard.
They can draw number bonds, write a number sentence, tally marks, pictures, or whatever they think. Then we turn and tell each other what we drew. My students LOVE sharing what they wrote! For this resource, you can have your students practice making friends of ten using Valentine erasers and a heart ice cube tray!
You can teach this activity at your teacher table and then put it in your math tubs! How fun!! If you’re interested in checking out my Valentine’s Day Math Station resource, click here.
I hope you got some great ideas from my 7 favorite Valentine’s Day read-alouds that you can expose your students too! Remember to read as often as you can so your students can hear your intonation, fluency, and expression!! This will pave the way for them to become excellent readers, writers, and creative thinkers!
Reading mentor texts to young children is a multifaceted approach that contributes to their holistic development, including language skills, cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, and a lifelong appreciation for literature. What do you have to lose?
If you’re interested in reading about how I organize my Mentor Texts and which books I read for Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop, click HERE.
Until next time, let’s take your classroom to the next level!
