Get a CLUE!

Someone has been doing math wrong!  All this time they have been calculating wrong answers and putting them on the teacher’s answer keys!  The dreadfulness of such a devious deed!  Why, why would anyone want to do their math wrong and confuse innocent mathematicians?!?!

Your job is to find the dastardly villain and apprehend him!  To do so you need to find the area of the Clue rooms/locations based on the scale factor you pick from your teacher.  Each square edge will be worth that amount.  Round to the thousandth place for accuracy.  When complete answer the questions below about your clue board.

And that's how it begins!  Somewhere along in the year, I decided I wanted to do something with the 2 Clue board games my son received for Christmas!  Why not, right?  They were different versions and if you know me, I don't just do one when multiple versions will do!

So then what could I do?  Google of course because someone has done a geometry activity with the square units on a Clue Board right?!?!?!  Apparently not.... or at least not that I could find.  And I looked.  I started this blog to help people not have to recreate the wheel as I live by that philosophy!

So I have 2 boards.... yeah... that's not enough so let me go on a wild search for different boards!  I ended up with 5 boards which I did hunt for.  Eventually purchasing some off ebay.  You can print them and distribute or laminate to use them but that did not seem like near as much fun as each group having their own Clue Board!  I included several printable ones for you as well in my shared folder.

I ended up with the following hard copy versions:  Simpsons, 1986, 2002, 2013, and 2015.  Word to the wise, do not purchase the 2013.  It does not lend to the project as well but it is usable.

Each group was given a specific Clue Project sheet to show their work and was specific to their board.  This went through multiple changes throughout the day and the one I'm sharing with you is the revised version.  Below is the original one, I added a couple of columns to help the students organize and me grade!

This is my revised one based on students needs and desire.  And for you.... it's not all 'fonted' out so easy to edit for your needs!  I used some specific teacher names so you'll likely want to change those up for your specific school.

For the printable ones, I did specific sheets with minor changes from the physical game boards I did.  My vision for these were for students who were absent to make up.  I plan on printing them black and white.  They are different boards than what I had in the class so you could have 4 more versions ready to go.

So now on to the detective work!  My students entered.  Now teacher friends, it's May.  State standardized tests are next week.  I've been working every weekend just about since March.  I usually go all out for activities like these but really phoned in the decor for this one.  I left too late for a dead body model so had to work with what I could.  I laughed all day!!!  My kids did too but I have a sneaking suspicion it was at me 😕 and I did fix the wonky foot during 3rd period.

I couldn't just throw an activity out there could I?!?!? 

As students worked, there are a few that you and they could easily debate for square units.  Some are definitely subjective but at the beginning of the project, I did go over how I expected them to count the square units.  I think this is key to help them succeed.  Clue has all kinds of perspective on their boards.  As a result, some of the questions and answers might not be perfect but should work.  You may edit to your liking of course!

After they found their square units, I handed out 'Clue' cards with their scale factor on it.  I planned on making this a major grade so the scale factors were not simple.  They were ones like 3.14 meters, 40 inches, 1.226 yards, etc.  I printed the cards below and wrote my scale factors on the back.

I've included these for you as well.  

I was very happy with how it turned out.  There were some frustrations to work through and a-ha moments that were all part of learning and life skills.  I had fun with it , I think the students had fun with it and the objective of scale factor and area were discovered and applied in a unique way.

You may download ALL of my resources HERE for FREE!

As always, please let me know if you see any needed changes or have ideas to share!

Enjoy!
Lisa