My husband & I came up with this last minute idea when bad weather cancelled an outdoor activity.
Instead of a murder mystery we had our jr. youth try to find “Who smashed the Pumpkin?” (it was a fall theme).We picked 7 designated rooms in our church and picked 7 items from around our house to use as weapons, ex. boot, hammer, wrench. All the jr. youth were suspects. A weapon was placed in each room along with several names and a clue about the room. The name that was not in a room was the criminal. Everything was ready by the time the kids arrived and all the lights in the church were turned off. The kids broke up into groups and were given a paper listing the suspects, weapons and rooms. Then the kids were sent off to find all the clues with their flashlights. The first group to figure out who, with what and where won a prize.
It took our kids about 2 hours to play and begged to play again as soon as they were finished.