Reading Mystery - Once Upon a Crime, TEACHER Toads     

​Product Description
Beginning of School Reading Mystery: Once Upon A Crime, TEACHER TOADS! A fun reading and comprehension activity to kick-start the new school year, however, can also be used any time of the year if you wish. NO PREP, just print and go! 
- The main goal in this mystery is to encourage reading. 
- The work involved to solve the clues covers skills such as comprehension, spelling, vocabulary and definitions, nouns and adjectives, that work with the reading passages. 
- Students must highlight the evidence in the reading text to prove their answers.
- The discovery format requires a fill in the missing letter process to unlock clues. 
- Reading the text is required to be able to solve the missing letters in words, sentences, and statements. 
- Each clue requires students to critically think to decide which suspects they can eliminate from their suspect list. The last suspect remaining is who turned the teachers into toads.

All of the reading passages are included in this original story that features your 'student detective' as the star throughout. 

Video Hook included for optional use (can now be viewed in the preview thumbnail section OR .....(link on its way)....

Preparation
This is a print and go activity. Everything that you need for this activity is in the download, including the reading passages. Just print, copy for your students and set up the (optional) video hook for viewing at the start! The video hook is designed to make students think 'what's going on?' This was done on purpose to encourage them to read.

Implementation suggestion: 
Depending on your students' reading abilities, the ease of this activity may vary. To keep everyone at the same pace, you could read the passages together as a class and then follow up with the activities to fill in the missing letters that will help unlock a clue. For independent work, set a timer for reading only, and then allow them time to answer the questions and re-read the text if they need. If your students find this too easy, I'd recommend the 'Private Eye CSI - Literacy Mysteries' range instead, which requires inferring and more skill to solve the mystery. 
If your students are trying to attempt the activity section without reading the passages, instruct them to highlight the evidence in the reading text to show you where they found the answers. 

How long will this activity take?
This varies depending on the age and reading level of your students. If you would like to keep your class at the same point, I recommend pacing the clues one by one. 

The same 'self-checking feature' included in this design as in my math mystery range. 

There are FIVE clues to crack!

SKILLS TARGETED
- Reading
- Comprehension
- Spelling
- Nouns, and Adjectives
- Definitions and vocabulary
- Character Traits 
- Critical Thinking
- Writing (optional on the mystery declaration sheet)

OPTIONAL: After finishing the five clue sheets, an optional mystery declaration sheet can be used to state the culprit. On this declaration page, students report WHO they think turned the teachers into toads, plus outline the clues discovered along with their elimination reasoning for each.

The end of the story is wrapped up in a one-page article certificate. (Shhh.... keep these a secret as they reveal the mystery answer in the newspaper article your little star detective features in.)