The Mystery of the Missing Magnifying Glasses
Next week’s reading theme is MYSTERIES. I’ll pick up a stack of mystery books for young readers at the library later today. I had also ordered some inexpensive magnifying glasses as “giveaways” so my shelter kids could be Sherlock Holmes on their own.
Much to my surprise when I opened the box from Indigo Instruments, I found not 12 magnifying glasses, but 200 surgical blades. That would be the last thing in the world I would want to offer a precocious 5-year-old.
I looked closer at the packing invoice and discovered what must have happened. The blades were intended for a “Barbara Dasch” at Kensington Stables in Brooklyn. Were they to be used for operating on horses’ hooves? I will probably never know.
I spoke to a very nice guy Chris at Indigo Instruments in Ontario today. I offered to mail the package on to the Brooklyn horse woman, but he told me to just keep the blades. And what am I going to do with $50 worth of small knives?
Meanwhile he will ship my tiny magnifying glasses today with the hope they will be here early next week.
I’m still working on an activity centered around mysteries. I was considering putting together some mystery boxes with things inside that the children could guess by using sound and smell but this might be too hard. I also thought about having them pull some common object (a comb, a key, etc.) out of a bag and have the other kids guess what it is by asking questions. Then I remembered those pictures I loved as a child where you had to find 6 cats hiding in the room in funny places. I’m sure I’ll come up with something, but if you have ideas please let me know! (The kids are 4-7 years old.)
posted by Barbara at 9:33 AM
5 Comments:
Knives and kids don't go together for sure. At least the lady who got your magnifying glasses will get a good look at the horses' hooves.
Whoops! :)
I love getting the chance to "peek under the hood" of your creative process! I'm sure you'll settle on a fun activity.
F.
What a strange mix-up! Maybe you could talk to the kids about this very "mystery," and ask them to think about how the confusion occurred?
if you want to do something with smell, use cotton balls saturated and put in empty film cannisters (you can get these at a photo finish place, they usually have a ton of them bouncing around).
You can take an empty oatmeal cardboard canister and put a sock with the toe cut out over it and have kiddos reach into the opening and feel what is inside, then give hints to the others (but not tell WHAT it is...)
Around Halloween, I used to take a book about Giants and have the kiddos "feel" the parts = a glove filled with rice (hand), dried peaches (the giants ear), really solid jello with saran wrap over it (the Giant's heart).... Giant olives (Giant eyes) that was always fun!
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