Instructions for Easy Mystery Games for Kids

Footprints

• Pretend that an object, such as a cookie, a pie, a statue, or a picture, has gone missing. Create a footprint by pressing a shoe into some loose dirt outside the back door, or classroom door. Tell the child that you saw the criminal escape and point them towards the door. Mix some plaster of Paris, following the instructions, and have the child pour the mixture into the footprint, creating a cast of the footprint. The child can then compare the cast to the shoes of various suspects in order to determine the culprit.

Fingerprints

• Have an accomplice touch a window, creating fingerprints. Tell the child that an object has gone missing, much like in the Footprints activity, but that they escaped out the window. Challenge the child to investigate the crime by dusting the window for fingerprints. To dust for fingerprints, a child should lightly dust the window with talcum powder, blow away the excess powder, then apply a piece of tape to the dusted fingerprint. The child should carefully peel the tape away from the window and stick it to a piece of black construction paper or poster board. The child can then take the fingerprints of various subjects and compare them to the fingerprint taken at the crime scene to discover who the culprit is.

Deciphering the Evidence

• Create a sound recording of the scene of a supposed crime. Have a child determine the location of the crime by listening to the sound recording. For example, the sound of a noisy street, a particularly loud clock, a dog barking, or music being played could all be used as clues to lead the child to the crime scene. Alternatively, a mystery photograph could be left at the crime scene, portraying an up close image of the criminal, such as a shoe, a bracelet, or a hand with a certain color of nail polish. The child can then determine the criminal by comparing the image in the photograph to the appearance of different suspects.

Retrieving the Lost Object

• Design a scavenger hunt for a child, or for children, to discover the location of the object that went missing during the Footprints, Fingerprints, or Evidence activities listed above. Clues can be written in a code and deciphered by children using a code chart, or could be printed in blue in a field of red letters, requiring the use of a special magnifying glass to view the clues. If you are using the magnifying glass method, create a magnifying glass out of cardboard and translucent red plastic. When the child holds the magnifying glass over the red and blue letters, only the blue design, or text, will be revealed.