Mystery Prompt #3

With St. Patrick's Day coming up, I used the theme  to create this next mystery writing prompt. If you look closely at the prompt picture provided in this post, you will find a pot of gold, a leprechaun hat, and a shamrock. 

Use the prompt below on it's own as a story starter for some inspiration and see if your students notice any particular item, or follow the lesson suggestions posted underneath. 

The idea behind this prompt is for students to pick any item in the picture part of the prompt below that inspires them to write a mystery story about. ​

LESSON SUGGESTIONS

• Present the image above to your class. Either show on the Interactive Whiteboard, or print and hang somewhere.
• Instruct student to take a few minutes to decide which item they think the prompt could be talking about (no right or wrong answers). Setting a timer for 'thinking time' is recommended. 
• Invite students to share their ideas with the rest of the class. Remind students that there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers. This prompt is to invite creative thinking.
• Set a writing task to follow the discussion. Instruct students to pretend they are detectives and must write what they think happened.
  
• The following questions should be addressed in the writing task: what is the item sitting on the shelf? Who owns the item? How did it get there? Where is this room in the bigger scheme of things? Why is this item important?  Print the template worksheet image below for this writing task  Otherwise you could just use plain lined paper or workbooks to carry out addressing the questions to help 'build' the story.. 

Remind everyone that there's no right and wrong, otherwise there would be no room for creative thinking in this task.

• To develop this as a writing activity, you could extend it by having your students work towards writing a full story around this scene. Completing the questions in the template above should help develop a plan for their own mystery story.  ​

As with all mysteries, we all want to know an 'answer.' While there is no right and wrong, in fact I hope your students come up with lots of different ideas, I've included my own mystery story in the video below to show what happened. You may choose to share this with your kids after they finish writing their own stories to carry out a compare and contrast lesson or just for fun. 

• After viewing the video, discuss if anyone had any similar ideas in their stories. Do a compare and contrast session with the story above and what students wrote.
• Further extend this mystery activity by instructing students to rewrite their mystery story using the ideas from the video. Where do they think Leroy McClumsy left his pot of gold?

You may have noticed the 'Math Mystery' tag in the video, and that is because this case can be further resolved and integrated with a math activity if you wish. 

Solve the case! Where in Mathattan did Leroy leave his pot of gold?
If you are interested in extending this mystery activity by integrating it with your math lesson, click on the link image below to find the file case  on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. A fun theme for a St. Patrick's Day spiral review math session. Each grade level provides five clues with a variety of math review. Be sure to check out the product description to see the specific math skills covered in that grade version. 
​It is free to register if you don't have a login with TPT.

1st Grade

4th Grade

2nd Grade

5th Grade

3rd Grade

6th Grade

Not sure what a math mystery is? Do you want to know more about how to use them? Check out the video below. ​

You may also like to read this blog post
'Five Easy Ways to Use Math Mysteries in your Classroom.'
​
Still not sure if a math mystery is something you want? Try a full FREE math mystery available to download from my TPT Shop. The link will redirect you to where you can download the multi-grade bundle.  It is free to register if you don't have a login with TPT.
CLICK HERE to find in my TPT store. ​

For MORE FREE Mystery Prompts CLICK HERE!