Author Topic: HUGE Murder Mystery - Good for Summer Camp (Read 17148 times)

Stephanie. · « **on:** April 15, 2011, 10:59:25 AM »

Hello!

I posted a conversation Murder Mystery a couple of hours ago and already so many people have commented on it, so I thought I'd upload this HUGE murder mystery that I did at my winter camp. It took 3 whole hours and the students got really into it. It takes A LOT of prep work and you'll have to take pictures of different places in your school and hide clues and stuff, but it's totally worth it. I got the original idea from a topic posted on here in the high school section but I changed it to last longer - but I definitely cannot take all of the credit!!

It's a really hard lesson to explain but the lesson plan is pretty thorough. The premise is that one of the English teachers has been murdered and the students have to find out who was murdered, the motive, the murder weapon, where the murder happened and who the killer was. They complete clues and go running around the school to find more clues. It was really a lot of fun. I have attached a ton of files - so look through them and if you have any questions or trouble understanding let me know :)

(Obviously the wordsearch is not mine - I found it on Boggles ESL - you can really use any wordsearch for this part)

arhwarang · « **Reply #1 on:** June 23, 2011, 03:49:47 PM »

Nice Work on making this lesson much more clear to understand. I remember seeing that idea last year but how you organized it makes it easy to follow...I hope to use this for my summer camp..Thanks again! Cheers :D

logan.leduc · « **Reply #2 on:** June 23, 2011, 08:07:27 PM »

THANK YOU!

This is the sort of thing I had been planning on doing all semester, but not sure how to go about it. This will be great to get me started!

Hornet166616 · « **Reply #3 on:** June 23, 2011, 10:04:59 PM »

Wow, great ideas! I had a similar thing planned for camp but this is much more fun I think so I'm making a switch. Cheers!

mysterywhiteboy · « **Reply #4 on:** June 24, 2011, 07:55:30 AM »

Thanks so much for posting this. It looks like a lot of fun. I'm going to try it with my kids. Great job.

wgensel · « **Reply #5 on:** June 24, 2011, 08:14:40 AM »

What level did you do this with?

Stephanie. · « **Reply #6 on:** June 24, 2011, 08:43:33 AM »

Middle School Grades 1 to 3. It was a really mixed class - some of them were high level, some were low level - I just made sure to split up the groups evenly and everyone understood and got really into it.

mistee · « **Reply #7 on:** June 24, 2011, 09:00:05 AM »

Stephanie, you're an absolute angel, thanks for posting this, I'm starting to get my summer camp organized and this lesson will be perfect!

What do you think is the minimum number of students you can successfully do this lesson with? In the past my camps were supposed to be 20-25 students, yet I always end up with 10 or so....

Florence7 · « **Reply #8 on:** June 24, 2011, 09:32:18 AM »

This is GREAT! Thanks so much for posting.

Stephanie. · « **Reply #9 on:** June 24, 2011, 01:18:56 PM »

I'm glad you guys all like it!

I think the minimum number would be like 6. As long as there's enough to have at least two groups (for the competitiveness to work) and then 3 students per group - it could definitely work! I think I had about 16 - 4 groups of 4 when I did it during winter vacation.

louloubelle_5 · « **Reply #10 on:** July 05, 2011, 11:56:51 AM »

This is a stonking lesson thank you so much! I'm currently adapting it for my Summer Camp. One thing, do you have a copy of the fingerprint worksheet you used that you can upload?

Thanks xx

pinny · « **Reply #11 on:** July 08, 2011, 11:18:19 AM »

smooth move!!!

thebryn · « **Reply #12 on:** July 13, 2011, 04:01:08 PM »

Stephanie -

absolutely beautiful lesson, very well thought out and inventive. On the last clue (#9 Who was the murder) you mention in the lesson plan that student have to match the photo they find to where they map the finger prints. How does this bit work?

Huge thanks for your dedicated work!

Stephanie. · « **Reply #13 on:** July 13, 2011, 08:13:53 PM »

In clue 7, students have to find fingerprints hidden around the room and write down whose fingerprints were found where. For example, Sally's were on the desk, Tom's were on the bookshelf, etc. I do not have a document that I can upload for this because it has all my co-teachers' fingerprints and I just made it using the photocopier.

In clue 9, they get the picture of the murderer and then one of the questions they have to answer is where IN the classroom did the murder happen. So if they put together Tom's picture then they would say the murder happened near the bookshelf. Does that make sense?

Hope this works out as well for all of you as it did for me!

munmak97 · « **Reply #14 on:** July 14, 2011, 12:27:36 PM »

like a scavenger hunt.. but bigger!

thebryn · « **Reply #15 on:** July 15, 2011, 10:33:07 AM »

Cheers for the clarification Steph :)

hyj · « **Reply #16 on:** July 15, 2011, 03:03:04 PM »

wow! this is soooooooooooooo nice! even though my class can have 2 hours at most in a row, which means that i have to adapt this one little bit, but this one definitely make my kids gladly involve in class! thanks a lot!

ross.d · « **Reply #17 on:** July 09, 2012, 10:47:47 AM »

Simple fingerprint sheet that the students can use as a clue.

skippyb02 · « **Reply #18 on:** July 09, 2012, 12:15:20 PM »

Just wonderful! Thank you!

Rafiqua · « **Reply #19 on:** November 06, 2014, 10:25:46 AM »

Looks great I'm going to use this for winter camp