Category: Mini Lessons

The Dirty Classroom

🔍 Read the Story

The classroom is clean in the morning.
After lunch, the floor is very dirty.
There is paper and trash on the floor.
Three students are in the classroom: Mia, Jake, and Leo.

🧩 Look at the Clues

• Mia says, “I cleaned my desk after lunch.”
• Jake has paper in his hands.
• Leo is putting trash in the trash can now.

Question:

👉What happened?

👉I think __________ made the classroom dirty because __________________________.

Bonus:

👉 Why is it NOT the other 2 students?

I think __________ did not do it because __________________________.

Scroll down for the answer!

Answer:

The criminal is Jake!

Don’t be fooled by Leo, who is holding the trash–he is trying to clean up the mess Jake made!

It can’t be Mia, since she cleaned her desk after lunch.

Jake has been caught in the middle of throwing paper everywhere!

…Did you solve the mystery? 😉

Note to Parents:

I am going to try something new with my blog: creating mini-lessons that are designed to be fun and less academic. Learning should be fun!

Each Mini-Series will have a theme. This time, we willl be focusing on “Crime”. Don’t worry- it won’t be real! Students will become detectives to solve small mysteries, and there will be accompanying writing/speaking prompts to let kids practice explaining their ideas in detail. Again, these lessons are for fun, and shouldn’t feel like homework!

My hope is that students will find the later mysteries more challenging, which will in turn require deeper thinking skills.

It is very important to ask students why—not just the answer. The goal is to practice either–or both–writing or speaking outputs.

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Here is a simple example mystery:

Mystery: Who Took the Cookie?

Story:
Mom made 3 cookies.
Now, 1 cookie is gone.
Tom, Anna, and Ben are in the room.

Clues:

• Tom has chocolate on his hands.
• Anna says, “I don’t like cookies.”
• Ben is sleeping.

Question:
👉 Who took the cookie?

Answer Frame:
👉 “I think ___ took the cookie because ___.”

(The answer is pretty obvious here, I hope!)

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Here is an example worksheet that will be used for each mystery:

Again, the goal is to have kids explaining their ideas in detail. I really recommend having your child use as many of the words in the word bank as possible, so that they can get used to having to think a little more deeply about their sentences.

Links to each mystery lesson:

Mystery #1:

Mini Series: Let’s Be Detectives! 🕵️ Mystery #1

Mystery #2:

Mystery #3:

Good Luck, Detectives! 🤪