We hope that the Farmwell community had a good time participating in and following along with our “Where is Oreo?” reading mystery challenge! Thanks to all the books you read and clues you unlocked, Oreo has been found! No one took her, she just went on vacation to the beach!

By the end of this activity:

• students logged 405 books since March 8,
• 177 students earned the Detective Constable badge by logging at least 1 book since March 8,
• 23 students earned the Detective Sergeant badge by logging 5+ books since March 8, and
• 5 students earned the Detective Inspector badge by logging 10+ books since March 8.
• 20 students earned the Super Sleuth badge by both correctly solving the mystery of Oreo’s disappearance and logging at least 1 book

Thanks to the students in Mrs. Slate’s classes yesterday, the last two clues have been unlocked! That means it’s time to get down to business and solve this mystery! For the final clue, you will need to make a copy of it to your Google Drive and review all the information you collected from the previous nine clues. You may also need to refer back to the home page. Once you think you have the answer, go to the Solve the Mystery page and fill  out the Google Form with your answer. Time is of the essence, so you only have until Tuesday morning (April 13) to become a Super Sleuth and submit your answer!

This morning, clue #8 was unlocked! The last two clues will unlock together, which means we’re so close to discovering the truth about what happened to Oreo! At this point, we’ve had 319 regular books logged + 48 books in the x2 bonus genre for a total of 415 towards unlocking clues! That means we only need 10 more books to unlock the last 2 clues!

As a reminder, you will need information from the first 9 clues in order to solve the 10th one and solve the mystery of Oreo’s disappearance! Once the 9th and 10th clues are unlocked, there will be a “Solve the Mystery” button on the “Solve the Mystery” page of the “Where is Oreo?” site. You can refer back to the home page of the site at any time for information to help you solve the clues.

Congratulations, Farmwell students! You read enough books over spring break to unlock clue #7! That means there are only 3 clues left to unlock in order to solve the mystery of Oreo’s disappearance! Can you unlock them before the end of 3rd quarter? If every student reads one book this week and logs it, we can get those last 3 clues unlocked!

The clues are getting trickier. Have you been keeping up with all of them? You will need information from the first 9 clues in order to help Detective Ivy solve the 10th clue and discover the truth about where Oreo has been. Making a copy of the clue tracker sheet is optional for participation, but it can help you keep track of information from all of the clues. If you haven’t made a copy and you want to, click here to make a copy of the clue tracker to your Google Drive.

Congratulations, Farmwell students, on unlocking the 6th clue this morning! Only 4 more clues left to unlock before you can solve the mystery of what happened to Oreo!

Spring break is almost here, and that means lots of prime reading time! If you want the books you read to count double towards unlocking the final few clues, you might want to consider reading a book in our current bonus genre. For the first few weeks of this activity, mystery was the bonus genre, but now it is historical fiction! We’ve got quite a few historical fiction options you might want to consider in MackinVIA. If you download the MackinVIA app to your Chromebook from the Google Play Store, you can even download the books to read offline.

If you want to try a book that combines both our previous bonus genre (mystery) and our current bonus genre (historical fiction), give Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce a try in MackinVIA.

Publisher’s blurb:

Twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father’s law books and her mum’s microscope, Myrtle studies toxicology, keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis, and Observes her neighbors in the quiet village of Swinburne, England.

When her next-door neighbor, a wealthy spinster and eccentric breeder of rare flowers, dies under Mysterious Circumstances, Myrtle seizes her chance. With her unflappable governess, Miss Ada Judson, by her side, Myrtle takes it upon herself to prove Miss Wodehouse was murdered and find the killer, even if nobody else believes he —not even her father, the town prosecutor.

Students who read and log books on our “Where is Oreo?” site can earn digital badges in addition to being eligible for our weekly random prize drawing. Digital badges are emailed to students to their school Gmail accounts and don’t have the “Farmwell Station” watermark across them.

If students read and log 1 book, they earn the Detective Constable badge. So far we have 125 Detective Constables!

If a student reads and logs 5 books, they earn the Detective Sergeant badge. So far we have 15 Detective Sergeants!

If a student reads and logs 10 books, they earn the Detective Inspector badge. So far we have only 2 Detective Inspectors.

If a student reads and logs 20 or more books, they earn the Chief Inspector badge. So far no students have earned the Chief Inspector badge, but we hope that changes before the end of this activity!

Once all of the clues are unlocked, students who have logged at least 1 book AND who solve the mystery of “Where is Oreo?” will earn the Super Sleuth badge!

The first student in each grade level who has logged at least 1 book AND solves the mystery will win a mystery prize pack in addition to earning the Super Sleuth badge.

As of this morning, students only need to read and log 28 more books (or less if they are historical fiction books) to unlock the 6th clue! We’re so close to solving this mystery and closing the case!

Farmwell students have logged 264 books since March 8 (224 + 40 in the x2 bonus genre for a total of 304 towards unlocking clues). We have unlocked 5 out of 10 clues, so we’re halfway to solving the mystery! Only 46 more books needed unlock the 6th clue, and if you read and log a historical fiction book between now and April 11, it will count twice towards unlocking clues.

Don’t forget that every week during this activity we will select a random name out of the students who have logged books that week to win a mystery prize! So far we have selected two winners.

Don’t stop reading now, Detective Ivy still needs your help!

Our final suspect is Mrs. Gwizdala, our 6th grade guidance counselor!

Farmwell students have logged 230 books (195 books + 35 in the x2 genre = 265 towards unlocking clues). They have unlocked 4 clues! Students need 34 more books to unlock the next clue.

Our next suspect is Mr. Ameen, one of our assistant principals!

Our students have logged 213 books (183 books + 30 books in the x2 bonus genre for a total of 243 towards unlocking clues). That means Farmwell students have unlocked 4 clues so far! The bonus genre will be changing on Monday, March 22, so if you want those bonus points for reading a mystery, there are only a few days left before a different genre will give the x2 bonus.