The new Sunday school quarter is here for my 1st and 2nd graders. The theme is detectives. The decorating is a lot harder than I thought. Since we had a detective VBS two years ago, it’s really hard to think of any new decorating ideas. Unfortunately, the biggest idea I can find on Pinterest is mostly silhouettes, which, unfortunately, isn’t very colorful!
Although I can’t find much in the way of decorations, I found a TON of ideas for props, activities, and disguises. I’ve already had a ton of fun putting together a detective kit for each of my students. I bought a soft pencil case for the kits. In each kit is:
A tiny notebook with a “Confidential” sticker on it
Magnifying glass
Tiny sticky notes
Pencil
Pencil sharpener
Flashlight
Fingerprinting brush (a makeup brush/kabuki brush from the dollar store)
Detective Badge
Glasses (for disguise)
Disappearing-ink pens (with UV light to see the writing)
My plan is to use every item in the kit during the next quarter to help solve mysteries and learn the Bible. I’m envisioning a room full of children searching for clues with magnifying glasses and dusting for prints and I want to join them. It turns out that my love for Nancy Drew is as strong as ever!
For a little extra detective work in the classroom, I’ve also created some blank Profile Reports to have the students fill out after each lesson as a “detective report”. The report asks for facts about the main character of the story, so they’ll get to fill out the name, address (Bible reference), and any notes they want to write down about the “case”. I’ll also add a little profile picture of the appropriate bible character before giving the papers out. One fun thing I love about this, is they get to put down their own information too as the “Investigating Detective”. I left space in the middle so we can write in big red letters “CASE CLOSED”!
Free Download of Detective Profile Report
Of course, this just a sneaky way of continually reinforcing the lesson with the kids, but I think it will be a lot of fun for them to act like real detectives!
I’m really excited about this quarter. My co-teacher and I will be decorating our Sunday school room this weekend, so we’ll see what we come up with!