Page Elementary students and staff embarked on their own version of the game as an entire school. During the month of October, clues were given out with morning messages and students became detectives working to solve the mystery. It also tied in with the library theme of mystery books for the month.
The challenge began:
“Someone in the school has been acting odd…but who, where and why?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a meticulously curated list of individuals, locations, and objects, assembled with great care, to assist in unraveling the enigmatic mystery of what I saw on that fateful night.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I shall furnish you with a series of puzzles and clues. When these riddles are deciphered, they shall methodically eliminate items from this list. Should you demonstrate the acumen to solve all my clues, you will be left with the three genuine elements that will guide you to the veritable answer of what transpired that evening. Best of luck!
Yours faithfully, Mr. Ritsema the Butler.”
Mr. Ritsema is bound by the “Butler’s Code” not to reveal anything directly, but instead to use puzzles and clues for students to decipher. Cast members included Mr. Ritsema (maintenance) as the Butler; Mrs. Funk-Dieterle as Mrs. Peacock; Mr. Abbott (5th grade teacher) as Colonel Mustard; Mr. Spees (resource room) as Mr. White; and Mrs. Shuck (librarian) as Professor Plum.
“We had a lot of fun with it. Everyone was engaged and really got into it from the get-go. It was a good team building exercise and really just a lot of fun,” said Principal Amy Forman who used eerie sounds and music to highlight the mystery announcements.
She saw the game online as a schoolwide activity and thought it would be fun to try. The school-wide mystery coincided with the library's focus on mystery books and the whole mysteriousness of Halloween.
Mr. Abbott’s students, Mackenzie Schutter and Amelia Boersma said they absolutely loved the game. “It was fun trying to figure out all the clues. I took notes the whole time the clues were being given and then I would give them to Mr. Abbott so we could review them as a class,” said Schutter.
Boersma anxiously waited for every new clue. “It was so much fun when we knew it was going to be another clue day and we would all get excited,” she said. When asked to rate how much she liked the game on a scale of 1-10, she emphatically gave it one million!
In his classroom, Abbott put up pictures of all the clues to acreage a giant investigative case board for students to study each week. “It was fun watching them all work together to try and analyze the clues and try to figure it all out. Sometimes my students struggled with the clues, but it was great to see the whole class work together. They all just kept coming up with ideas. The class voted on what they thought were the right answers each week.”
Eventually, three classes solved the mystery correctly, but it was Mr. Abbott’s class that took the top prize with the correct answer as well as a creative solution to the crime. Students in Mrs. DeWitt’s and Mrs. Kahafer’s classes also solved the mystery correctly and scored a smaller treat. And Mrs. Michalski’s class, even though they didn’t come up with the correct answer to solve the mystery, was awarded a prize for the most creative overall story.
The ultimate goal of the game, Forman said, was simply to provide something the whole school could do together, provide team and classroom bonding, and have fun. While all that was taking place, students also had to listen attentively, read for comprehension, make decisions based on clues and use what they knew as facts from the clues to eliminate elements.
Spoiler Alert: The mystery was solved when students deduced it was Professor Plum in the office using the cauldron and making a huge mess while trying to make delicious treats for the whole school!