Mystery Writing Prompt #12

Gary discovered that his groundhog friend, Chuck, is missing from his burrow. 

Visual prompt provided in this post too. 

This particular mystery prompt would be great writing activity to do around Groundhog day. Use this mystery writing prompt to see what ideas your students come up with about 'what could have happened to Gary's groundhog friend?'  

Prep: Print and laminate the image below into a card to use as an early finisher task or writing center activity.
OR
​Display on the board for a whole class writing activity. 

There are plenty of ways you may wish to use this prompt. If you would like some ideas, keep on reading.

Lesson Suggestions:

• Present the image above to your class. Either show on the Interactive Whiteboard, or print and hang somewhere. If using as an early finisher activity, print and laminate these images as cards to reuse. 
• Either brainstorm as a class or instruct students to think about what could have happened. Discuss what they can see in the image to help create possibilities. Setting a timer for 'thinking time' helps.
• For this prompt, encourage students to look at the images closely to see what they can infer about any clues seen. 
• Invite students to share their ideas with the rest of the class to discuss.
• Set a writing task - Instruct students to pretend that they are detectives and must write what they think happened to the missing groundhog? Use questioning to help students develop their ideas: For example - did the groundhog just go for a walk and get lost? Maybe he went butterfly hunting? Or was the groundhog kidnapped? What clues lead you to believe what you think  happened? 

Remind everyone that there's no right and wrong, otherwise there would be no room for creative thinking.
To develop this as a writing activity, you could extend it by instructing students to write a full story.

The below video is my original story that goes with this prompt. This is not meant to be a 'correct' answer, but could be a fun way to show the case file. There's a fun math activity that goes with this to solve as a whole crime. 

Help figure out who kidnapped the Groundhog!
Make math fun this week! Continue this mystery Groundhog Day activity by getting your students to solve the case! The Case of the Kidnapped Groundhog provides lots of math practice and review.  Each clue page will require solving math problems to unlock a hidden message. The message will reveal important information that the students must use, with their powers of deduction, to narrow down a list of possible suspects. The clues encourage critical thinking, which will certainly challenge most of your kids. Perfect for math centers, consolidation, spiral review, early finishers, enrichment, homework, or the sub-tub. 

Available in different grade editions, click the links below to see what math skills are covered in each print and solve case file.
(Clue swapping across 2nd-6th grade editions allow for customization and differentiation).

1st Grade

4th Grade

2nd Grade

5th Grade

3rd Grade

6th Grade

OR Grab a FREE Math Mystery here to try first. 

CLICK HERE for more mystery writing prompt lessons.