First off, and very important for girls, was to make sure they were fashion ready :) I had bought a bunch of headbands from the dollar aisle at Target. Then at Hobby Lobby I found some cute plaid ribbon and jewel stickers. Nancy Drew always wore headbands!
After fashionizing I tested them on their observations skills. A sleuther has to be able to take in her surroundings and remember details when solving a mystery! I had prepared a little hand out beforehand and paired the girls up back to back. They were questions like. "Are her ears pierced? What color is her shirt? What color are her eyes?" ect.
From there we talked about fingerprints and I had each girl do a fingerprint of themselves on an index card. Originally I had thought each girl could touch a glass and then I'd mix up the glasses and the girls could dust for fingerprints. In practicing the night before I had a hard time with my homemade coco powder and paintbrush dusting set-up. It wasn't all that easy getting a good fingerprint. Jeff, Ruth's husband, suggested to blow off the coco powder instead of "dusting" for it. That worked a lot better! So in the end we had Taylor touch a super clean glass and demonstrated how to lift a fingerprint from there. I think the girls found it really interesting and had fun using their magnifying glasses looking at each other's fingerprints.
After that I pronounced them as ready to solve a real mystery. I passed out pictures of Jada, Taylor's doll. One for each of their folders. We explained where Taylor last saw her and I had prepared beforehand a list of suspects. More on that and the mystery in the next and final post!
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