Who Did It? A Leprechaun Crime Scene

What a fun day of engagement, learning, and excitement! I've often said that we spend our year moving from one special day to the next! These special days keep us motivated! Our Leprechaun Crime Scene Unit is one of our favorites! This blog post shares how we bring excitement, with lots of learning, during the days leading up to St. Patrick's Day.

Each of the 4 days leading up to St. Patrick's Day, the fun begins. Each day we set up a "small" room flip. As the kids enter the room each morning, they are anxious to see if the Leprechaun visited our room last night.

We use our "crime scene" markers to mark the mess made by the Leprechaun. We begin a list of the things the Leprechaun had done to our room. Take pictures for extra fun!

More "crime scenes"!

Each day, the kids become detectives as they follow a directed coloring to identify the Leprechaun that visited the classroom. We have a different one for each day.

Create a special treasure chest of fun! Lock the chest! The task for the week is to complete mystery tasks in order to "earn" keys.  Each group will collect a key for each completed task.  We have a collection of keys, with ONLY one that will unlock the treasure.  On St. Patrick's Day, we use the keys to see if we can unlock the treasure. Each group gets to try their keys! Who will open the treasure?

The Mystery Tasks

Create a set of cards with 4 suits, each suit with 10 numbered cards and one card without a number.

Create an array like above. Lay the 4 cards WITHOUT numbers in a column, face-up. Shuffle the remaining cards and lay them face down.  Kids take turns turning over a card and locating it's position on the number line.  Need more directions? This blog post shares step by step directions for this game!

Give the kids 4 sentences. I printed each sentence on a different color to make it easier! The kids have to solve the mixed up files by getting the words in the correct order to create sentences.

The kids then created their own mixed up files book by cutting and pasting the mixed up sentences.

To play this mystery game, hide the leprechaun word cards around the room. The leprechaun cards each contain a "tiny" word. The kids find the cards around the room. They use their magnifying glass to make the word larger so that they can read the word. 

Then, they find the correct leprechaun on the recording page, and write the mystery sight word.

To play this game, the kids follow the footprints to solve the cvc words. The words can be "real" or "nonsense". Invite one child to lay out 3 footprints. The other child, walks on the footprints as they blend the sounds. Write the word on the recording page.

To solve the mystery puzzles, the kids have to discover the counting pattern to put the puzzles together.

When playing this game the kids are trying to solve the mystery word.  Pick a mystery word. Add a picture to the front of paper bags. Inside each bag, place a magnetic letter needed to make the mystery word.  Invite the children to "feel" the letter in the bag. Guess the letter. Pull the letter out of the bag to check.  

As children pull out the letter, they record it under the correct picture on the recording page. Can you read the mystery word?

I teamed up with my good friend Adam Peterson to put all of these ideas into a unit. The ideas, photos, and directions are included in our Leprechaun Crime Scene Unit.