How Do I Get School-Age Children to Cooperate and Have Fun?

Every Fall, I see many new faces in my group of school-age children. While I have known some of the children for a number of years, others are new to the centre and to each other. So, how do I get the program ball rolling and help them develop a sense of team spirit and trust? By introducing them to mystery and adventure games that incorporate an element of surprise and encourage them to work collaboratively to meet exciting challenges. In these kinds of situations, children talk to each other, solve problems and trust one another to get a job done. Logic games, mysteries and quests improve the children's ability to communicate, cooperate and think logically. They also promote reading, writing and math skills. Each game provides a fun challenge -- something to solve, uncover, discover and play.

How I Got Started

Years ago, a mythical prankster called the Snack Sneak would interrupt our daily routine with challenge and play. This character would sneak away with our snack and leave a note -- forcing us to go on hunts, solve codes and decipher riddles to discover where our snack was hidden. These small games soon led us on to bigger and stranger things. Fortunately, with a little imagination and some inspiring ideas, anyone can create fun mystery and adventure games for kids of all ages.

Where to Start: Building the Skills

Set up the room so that puzzles and codes are a part of everyday activities. Magazines, jokes and riddles, word searches, or scrambled word messages can be left all around the room. Mystery chapter novels are extremely popular with children who are old enough to read. For non-readers, there are lots of "spot the hidden picture" books. During group time, try playing games that require acute observation and detection skills, such as Black Magic and Wink Murder, or riddles that involve some figuring or logical discussion.

Here is a game that does not require any equipment. It is very portable -- it can be played at a lunch table, on the bus or during group time.

Once -- A Storytelling Game

One of the best ways for children to get to know each another is by sharing stories about their lives. In this game, one person is designated the storyteller. He/she then begins to tell a story beginning with the words "Once upon a time." The storyteller either recounts a true story or makes up a tale. For example, the narrator may say "Once upon a time, I found twenty dollars on the sidewalk and gave it to my brother, since it was his birthday." The audience listens to the short story, then votes on whether they thought it was true or false. The children vote using their fingers: a peace symbol means they believe the story is true, while crossing their fingers means the tale is false. The narrator then tells everyone if the anecdote was really true or false and picks the next storyteller.

This game gives everyone the chance to talk about themselves in a safe environment where people are listening. It allows children to make up tall tales, embellish and share in the art of storytelling. The game can also help children feel more comfortable talking to a group of people. Often, children will ask the storyteller more questions about what happened and further discussions will take place.

Working as a Team, Solving and Finding

Do your kids love Lego like mine do? Sometimes, I hide our Lego and leave a note written in code to help them find it. Being able to take independent action and solve problems are skills that should be encouraged. Choice, ability and action are a big part of a school-age child's life. Start small and set-up short challenges to get them in the mood for longer games.

Investigation Assignments

Make up a series of crime solver assignments and put them in different envelopes for an R.C.M.P. Investigation Centre. Here are some examples:

Assignment 1: Use magic markers and paper to make a map of the day care room. Create a legend to show where the following things are: the chess set, woodworking tools, fine paint brushes, the hot glue gun, scrap materials, computer stations, tracing paper, beautiful junk and the microscope.

Assignment 2: What different types of crime are there? Locate the dictionary in the room and make a list of 10 different kinds of crimes (e.g. theft, forgery, etc.).

Assignment 3: Every good solver should have identification. Locate the scrap paper, markers, scissors and glue and make a badge for yourself.

Playing Detective

Another way to start solving mysteries is to create a false crime and list of suspects. Witness statements will provide clues about the identity of the real criminal. It is the solvers job to uncover the truth. Here are some suggestions.

1. Make up a crime sheet that describes a theft and lists five or more suspects in the case.

2. Either draw or use cutouts from magazines to create pictures of each suspect. Pick one to be the true criminal. Place the crime sheet and suspect information in one envelope.

3. Then, using index cards, write down or draw parts of a description that a witness could have made to identify the true criminal. Examples of clue cards include: Card A. Brown hair Card B. A hat Card C. Female

4. Create assignment envelopes that contain tasks for the solvers to accomplish, such as finding out the address of their school or spotting ten items that begin with the letters "CH." In each assignment envelope, include one clue card and one task.

5. As soon as the solvers complete a task, they receive another assignment envelope containing a new clue card and different task.

6. Write the solution to the crime and place it in a separate envelope. Once the children think they know who the real criminal is, they can open up the solution envelope to see if they are correct.

You can make up all sort of strange assignments that suit your program and your children's abilities. As the children gain practice working together, they will be ready to play more challenging, silly and exciting mystery and quest games.

The Popcorn Caper

Pick a day when most of your kids are there for snack and have it disappear! Pick a culprit -- a staff member, some famous character or blame the Snack Sneak like I do.

1. Ask one of the kids to get the popcorn popper and some popcorn. Instead of popcorn, however, the child finds a note inside the container that says "I.O.U. a whole lot of popcorn. If you really, really want to eat it today, you'll have to go and play under the rug!"

2. An excited group looks under the rug to find another clue. They find an envelope with different cards inside, each with a letter on it and another small note. The letters are: C H U O C (unscramble to form the word couch). The note says: "If the snack is gone, then someone is a sneak."

3. The kids go to the couch and find another clue taped to the bottom of a cushion. It is a map with a note in code. The map shows a trail that leads from the couch in the day care room to a tree in the playground. The note reads:
   "(a, is, one, some, then, gone, is, If) found you note second the from words these out scratch then it took who know to want you if but, snack your find to map the Follow"

4. The solvers figure out how to follow the map, and someone notices that the note is written backwards. Everyone goes out to the playground to find bags of popcorn hanging from tree branches! Did you figure out who played the trick? Snack Sneak of course! You can adapt this game to your setting and your kids' abilities. The challenges can be more difficult, longer or shorter, whatever your kids will enjoy!

Designing your own Mystery and Quest Games

Brainstorm with co-workers to come up with ideas for leaving clues or to think of themes you might want to try. Decide on what type of role you want to play when the game is afoot. How many helpers will you need? Do you wish to have a prize, a reward, a winner, or does everyone succeed? I always use a cooperative model; there is no winner, we all succeed. Our opponent is time, a mythical figure, failure or some dire consequence that has been set up in the context of the introduction.

Be prepared for:

• the excitement that the game generates
• the children expanding on the ideas you present
• people wanting to know what you are doing (parents, principals, staff, other kids)

Be careful:

• not to get caught up in the overly-elaborate plans or props to use subject matter that will not offend or frighten the community you work with
• to have proper supervision during transitions (travelling from room to room or floor to floor)
• to set up guidelines for behaviour during games, and have an alternative for children who cannot handle the guidelines
• to group the children in a way that spreads out skill levels and promotes cooperation

A quest or mystery game has four parts: a theme, an introduction, the process, and a conclusion. Pick a theme or topic and plan it out. Consider:

• space -- your classroom, your backyard, outdoors, halls, etc.
• time -- for planning, for the introduction, for the process
• number of participants - how many groups, how many in each
• resources -- other teachers, caretakers, other parents, props available
• planner's abilities -- story-writing, art, acting
• participants' abilities -- reading skills, math skills, patience, attention span, independence levels

The conclusions of the games are the final reward: they can be events such as songs, dances that involve the whole group or something material, like a new game or toy. Try to make the game-playing worthwhile for its own sake, so that you are not just rewarding effort with treats.

Clues and Paths

• Pick a method for leaving messages (for example, writing in glow-in-the-dark paint on clear plastic wrap).
• Pick the type of message you want to leave (such as a scrambled-word clue).
• Be creative with locations -- try things like writing in mustard on a slice of bread or wrapping notes around toothbrushes.

The secret to leaving good clues is to make them exciting and vary the amount of energy required to figure them out. Some clues can be straightforward (such as an arrow); some clues may be useless to the game on the whole or fun and exciting to see (footprints forming a trail, or a half-eaten cookie). Other clues may be part of figuring out the conclusion, such as parts of a map, pictures of "evidence," or decoding charts. So look at some of the ideas presented, remembering that you can always change them around.

Ways of Leaving Clues

• Hiding messages in balloons
• Writing in soap on mirrors or glass
• Writing in chalk on fabric that can be washed
• Writing in chalk on outside brick walls or pavement
• Writing in food colouring on bread slices
• Writing in washable markers
• Sticking paper cutouts onto walls
• Hanging fabric or paper banners
• Writing messages in glow-in-the-dark markers or paint on glass, windows or mirrors
• Writing in glow-in-the-dark markers or paint on clear plastic wrap to be hung up
• Taping messages
• Mailing cards ahead of time
• Leaving messages on friend's answering machines (co-operation and timing are important here)
• Arranging pennies on the ground to spell out words or look like arrows
• Using icing on cookies
• Leaving popcorn in garden beds
• Planting sticks in the ground with flags
• Weaving pieces of cloth into a chain link fence
• Freezing small, laminated notes in ice cubes

Types of clues and paths

• Word scrambles
• Number codes
• Letter codes
• Sound codes
• Colour codes
• Backwards writings
• Reflection writings
• Lemon juice writings
• Letters cut out or carved into objects
• Messages on leaves
• Torn-up maps
• Torn-up messages
• Riddle clues
• Directional clues
• Physical challenges -- such as ten push-ups or running around the baseball diamond
• Related-object clues -- such as toothbrush, face cloth and soap = bathroom
• Scratch-and-see clue cards
• Peel-and-see clue cards

Just to get you thinking, here are some of the game titles we played at Brant Street Day Care in Toronto:

You may have already been playing mystery games and quests and have found some of the games familiar. From peek-a-boo to Agatha Christie, life is a mystery so why not be sneaky?

Carol Ledden is supervisor of the Brant Street Daycare in Toronto, Ontario, and a part-time faculty member of George Brown College. She is also the author of The Snack Sneak: Logic Games, Mysteries and Quests, published by Annick Press Ltd., 1993. The section entitled "Designing your own Mystery and Quest Games" is taken directly from her book.

This article appeared in Interaction (Fall 1994), published by the Canadian Child Care Federation.

Posted by the Canadian Child Care Federation, August 1997.

---