Investigation Day

I set up an entire Investigation Day for my kinders to celebrate all we had learned so far!  I wanted to have a fun filled learning day for them where they could really apply all of the letter knowledge that they gained during the first month of school.

Our Investigation Day had a big mystery for the kids to solve - Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?

This day was mostly prep work and planning, but don't worry, I have that all available for you here.  The actual day was obviously fun for the kids, but also a lot of fun for me as a teacher.  I was worried that I would be stressed going so far from routine, but in reality, it wasn't that far from our routine!

I let the families know that an investigation day was going to be coming up.  I told them not to tell their kids.  I gave them the date and asked that their student would wear black to school that day.

I created a wish list on Amazon with some of the items that we needed for the day: flashlights, hats, invisible ink pens, notebooks, magnifying glasses, investigation tape, a stamp, and footprints.  The parents were great and donated all the supplies for the day!  I love Amazon wish lists!

I told my students a secret the day before our Investigation Day.  I told them that they had been so amazing and had already learned so much that we would have cookies for breakfast tomorrow!  Their mouths dropped. I had the cookies in a cookie jar and we did a little cookie dance before dismissal.  The students were in shock that their teacher was going to let them have cookies before 8:00 AM!

That afternoon came around and I worked on creating our learning space, the "crime scene" for the following day.  As I said, it did require some prep work, but again, I go in to detail with what you need to do in my Investigation Packet.

Students entered the next day wearing black (totally wasn't necessary, I just thought it added a little more to the day) and they were so excited for cookies!  I was waiting outside the classroom where students had to scan to enter.  Once approved, they walked in to the room, where they noticed all the cookies were missing!  We had music playing and students had to figure out what happened.

We opened our "Top Secret" note to start our day and learned that someone had stolen all of the cookies!

We started the morning by making Investigation Badges.  This was our typical math block.  We counted our fingers and added our finger prints.  We drew a self portrait using our basic shapes.  We measured our bodies with snap cubes and counted how tall we were.  Students came up with a Secret Agent name and scanned their badges in.

Next was our literacy block.  This was the bulk of our day. Students had 3 different codes to crack.  First they searched for clues all over the room.  Once they found clues, they had to figure out how to sort them.  Once the clues were sorted, they had to figure out what they meant.  The clues went together to solve 3 codes. Each code led to a hint of where the cookies went.

We added in some extra to the day.  The students had to make it through a maze which worked on motor skills.  The students recorded what was going on with the investigation on Seesaw, working on our retelling.  Students used watercolors to paint over a secret map that was leading to the cookies - this was our first time with watercolors and a great way to introduce rules of how to use them.

Students eventually found the cookies and of course were able to eat the cookies to celebrate a successful day!

Click here for the Investigation Day Packet.