Books To Teach About Setting

Must Have Books To Teach About Setting

These picture books are great for teaching about setting to your first grade students. Students will better understand how a setting can affect a character and story elements when hearing and studying these mentor texts. — This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission when you buy from the links.

Finding the just right books to teach about setting can be tricky! Don’t worry- I have compiled a list for you to hopefully help you with planning the right mentor texts. Click any of the photos below to take you to the affiliate link. Check out my list of must have books to teach setting below!

Creepy Carrots

One text I really like using is Creepy Carrots to teach setting. There are many different places the story takes place, but I also love the illustrations and the different colors used to portray the feel of “creepiness”. This is a great text for teaching details of a setting and how those details affect the main character.

The Panda Problem

I mentioned The Panda Problem in this post about books to teach character already, but it’s such a good book for story elements! This text goes over what a character, setting, problem, and solution is in a fun story. It is a great story for teaching story elements.

The Snowy Day

The Snowy Day is another great book to teach about setting. I like using this mentor text to teach how the setting can affect the character and what the character does.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is another great book to use to teach about setting. This text teaches and shows a setting that we would not typically see, which primary students really like to see. They find it funny and entertaining. This is a great text for teaching details of a setting.

Ira Sleeps Over

I love to use Ira Sleeps Over for many different teaching points, but I love to use it as a mentor text to teach about setting. It’s a great text to teach place and time, but also to teach how the setting affects the main characters feelings in the story.

Activities To Teach Setting

Teaching setting of a story in first grade and second grade with these activities makes it meaningful and fun! Students learn how to find the setting of a story with a week's worth of lesson plans and extra printables and activities to spiral it throughout the year.

Using mentor texts to teach about any reading skill is so important, but I also use these fun activities to teach about setting! You can read the blog post here or you can click here to check out the resource. It includes comprehension pages, a craftivity, a travel brochure, etc.