READERS' THEATER FALL MYSTERY SCRIPTS: GRADES 5-8 AUTUMN DRAMA FUN

Whether you call the season fall or autumn, you'll call this Middle School trio of mystery readers' theater scripts a 30% off fun drama bargain! Keep your grades 5-8 students engaged in October, November and December by reading mystery scripts that practice their reading, fluency and comprehension skills, AND activate their critical thinking skills to hunt for context clues to some perplexing mysteries! All the scripts have fall (and bad stormy weather) in common, yet there is LOTS of variety in this bundle. For example, one script is for the whole class, one is intended for about 10 readers, and the third is written for only 4 or 5 readers. You get 3 scripts for the price of 2!

Readers' Theater Fall Mystery Script: Fall Power Outage Mysteries

This Middle School Readers’ Theater fun brain teaser mystery script will give your lucky students practice in reading aloud, comprehension and writing, while having lots of autumn chuckles. The Fall Power Outage Mysteries readers’ theater script will entertain your grades 5-8 students and require them to perform inference tasks to solve clues.

The script is designed for TWENTY SIX readers! This keeps all of the students together in one place and fosters classroom community, rather than dividing the class into smaller reading groups. Each of the students has at least three individual speeches to read, and everyone is kept busy reading the frequent EVERYONE responses together. For classes smaller than 26, give students two roles.

This funny and engaging story includes two mysteries AND a storm that your students create primarily with their rubbing, clapping, clicking and snapping hands. While the classroom is in darkness during the brief power outage caused by the storm, two things happen before the lights come back on: a pet is freed and a cake is stolen. The first whodunnit to unravel is who let the class gerbil out of his cage. The gerbil is not a class favorite - the students think he makes their classroom look too juvenile - but their attitude changes after he vanishes. The second whodunnit is the identity of the birthday cake thief. Don’t worry: tween sleuth Jean Yuss and her friend Knowlan (AKA Nolan Dobbs) will help your students to solve these mysteries!

Written questions, feedback forms, and two additional fall activities will keep your students busy long after the script reading has finished. Fun, fun, fun!
A ready-made Easel Activity script is included with your purchase.

Readers' Theater Scary Mystery Script: A Stormy Mystery

This amusing Middle School Readers’ Theater brain teaser scary mystery script will give students practice in reading, comprehension and writing, while having lots of fun. A Stormy Mystery (#2 in the Scary Mystery Readers' Theater series) will entertain your students and require them to perform inference tasks to solve clues. The script has 10 parts but the number of readers can easily be contracted or expanded. This engaging story is about the clash of two very different pairs of brothers and sisters. Darius and Daisy consider getting out of bed before noon during the school holidays to be a major achievement. Sporty Smedley has never met a sport she didn’t like and her brother is Mr Charming (or so he thinks). In the middle of this meeting of opposites a storm rages (made by your students!) and two gaming consoles go missing... To track down the thief, students will have to disentangle two major clues. After completion of the script, SIX pages of activities await! Students discuss and then write on six questions, complete a journal entry, a word search, a word game AND a mix and match weather riddles exercise. Phew!

Question sheets and answers are included.

Most of the storm sounds will be made by the students without props. A rainmaker can be made by taping a sheet of recycled paper into a cone and putting small classroom objects like paper clips (or even some rice from home) inside it.

Table of contents

Cast List page 1

Script pages 2-14
Questions and activities pages 15-20
Answers pages 21-23

Readers' Theater Scary Brain Teaser Mystery Script: Who's There?
This Middle School Readers’ Theater scary brain teaser mystery script is perfect for when you want to give your grades 5-8 students laughs and minor scares in small groups. The “Who’s There?” mystery script will give students practice in reading and comprehension, while having lots of fun. It is designed for small groups; it can be performed by as few as four students. The Sound Effects role gives the script flexibility. The sounds can be enacted by the four readers together, by a separate fifth reader, or even by several additional readers.

The script concerns a brother and sister whose family has recently moved into an old house. It is the beginning of autumn. On the first night that Joe and Rosie are alone in the house after dark, strange things happen. There are knocks on the door, but no-one answers. There are phone calls, but no-one is at the other end. There is banging and scratching in the basement. Joe fears they have ghosts as house guests, to the disgust of Rosie. They work together to solve some of the “Who’s There?” mysteries, but they can’t manage to solve them all. They need the help of your students to carefully disentangle the clues!

Readers' Theater Skills Development Minimal Prep Board Game
Want to introduce your grade 5-8 students to Readers' Theater, or to develop their skills? Because this is not just any old fun board game but a READERS' THEATER SKILLS board game, the challenges students have to do to advance to the end (Broadway!) require a variety of voices. The optimal group size is about 5 students. Don't worry- there's very little prep involved for you! There's minimal photocopying and NO fiddling. Fun for both students AND their hard working teacher.
Set-up
All you need is enough one page standard A4 photocopies of the board game for each group of 3-6 students. The one page student guidelines can be displayed on your screen. A paper dice is included for your students to assemble if you wish. Alternatively, you could either allow students to use a random dice generator on their devices, or raid the board games in your classroom for dice. Only a single dice is needed.

Play

At first glance, the board might look like any other. For example, if you land on some squares you will miss a turn or be sent back. But unlike a typical board game, students can avoid these 'bad' occurrences if they follow the voice tasks specified on the student game instructions. It is the same with the 'good' squares. To get the benefits, such as rolling an extra turn or moving forward extra spaces, they have to earn it! A successful guess allows the person who guessed to move forward too, so both actor and guesser have a vested interest!
Please take a look at the Preview.

These scripts are part of a 50% off Bargain Bundle: 50% OFF DRAMA BIG BARGAIN BUNDLE.
Or try a seasonal script like READERS' THEATER THANKSGIVING MYSTERY MIDDLE SCHOOL SCRIPT

Try another scary mystery script: READERS' THEATER SCARY MYSTERY
Do your students enjoy being detectives? There's lots to keep them busy and engaged in MYSTERY UNIT DETECTIVE SKILLS & ACTIVITIES.
For oodles of drama fun, try Drama Games for Middle School.
Need fun exit tickets to keep your classes focused until the last minute of class? DRAMA TIME FILLERS & FUN EXIT TICKETS

Thanks so much for checking out this resource. If you click HERE to become a follower, I will update you with new resources as I create them. All new resources are 50% off for 48 hours: receiving follower notifications of new products leads to big savings!