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Mystery Flip-Flap

Mystery writers coordinate story elements to develop surprise endings with hidden illustrations.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Organized in teams of two, invite students to write an original mystery story with Crayola® Erasable Colored Pencils on lined paper.

  • Step 2

    Once the story has been written, edited, and finalized, ask teams to use Crayola Scissors to cut a door or window (a closable flap) in the center of a piece of construction paper. In the margin around the flap, students use colored pencils to illustrate the mystery story.

  • Step 3

    Open the flap. Use Crayola School Glue to attach white paper behind the construction paper. Dry overnight.

  • Step 4

    Students draw the solution to their mystery on the paper behind the flap. Close it. Staple the flip-flap illustration to the front of the mystery story.

  • Step 5

    Classmates read the story, look at the cover illustrations, and try to figure out how the mystery is resolved before they peek behind the flap.

Standards

LA: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade level topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

LA: Participate in shared research and writing projects.

LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.

VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Adaptations

Students collaborate to write an original story on a selected topic. Students create several solutions, or endings, to their story.

Using the same format, students work independently to write self-portraits and create a sketch to accompany the writing in the flip-flap format.