Macavity the Mystery Cat
Crime Card
The Crown Jewels have been stolen
from the Tower of London. The police
find a pawprint on the glass case.
Alibi Card
Macavity was shopping in the West End
when the crown jewels disappeared.
Crime Card
Someone reports seeing Macavity
walking a dog. It looks like a corgi.
Match
Crimes and
Alibis
Invent
New Cat
Crimes Alibi Card
Macavity was having tea with the
Queen Mum when the corgi was
stolen.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat
Produced by Melanie Hart at Morpeth School in London Borough of Tower
Hamlets in 1987. It has proved a very popular activity so we are pleased to be
able to provide it online. As promised we have now begun to put the original
drawings on the activity and I hope this will encourage you try it out. When we
updated this we discovered two typos which had been lurking for thirty years! Is
this a record?
The webaddress for this activity is:
<http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf>
Last updated 25th March 2017
Basic principles:
1. Build on prior knowledge.
2. Move from concrete to abstract.
3. Ensure everyone works with everyone else.
4. Extend social language into curriculum language.
5.Provide motivating ways to go over the same knowledge more than once.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING PROJECT
Project Director: Stuart Scott
We support a network of teaching professionals to develop and disseminate accessible talk-for-learning activities in all subject areas and for all ages.
17, Barford Street, Islington, London N1 0QB UK Phone: 0044 (0)20 7226 8885
Website: http://www.collaborativelearning.org
BRIEF SUMMARY OF BASIC PRINCIPLES BEHIND OUR TEACHING ACTIVITIES:
The project is a teacher network, and a non-profit making educational trust. Our main aim is to develop and disseminate classroom tested examples of effective group strategies that promote
talk across all phases and subjects. We hope they will inspire you to develop and use similar strategies in other topics and curriculum areas. We want to encourage you to change them and adapt
them to your classroom and students. We run teacher workshops, swapshops and conferences worldwide. The project posts online many activities in all subject areas. Our online newsletter is also
updated regularly.
*These activities are influenced by current thinking about the role of language in learning. They are designed to help children learn through talk and active learning in small groups. They work
best in non selective classes where children in need of language or learning support are integrated. They are well suited for the development of speaking and listening . They provide teachers
opportunities for assessment of speaking and listening.
*They support differentiation by placing a high value on what children can offer to each other on a particular topic, and also give children the chance to respect each other’s views and formulate
shared opinions which they can disseminate to peers. By helping them to take ideas and abstract concepts, discuss, paraphrase and move them about physically, they help to develop thinking skills.
*They give children the opportunity to participate in their own words and language in their own time without pressure. Many activities can be tried out in pupils’ first languages and afterwards in
English. A growing number of activities are available in more than one language, not translated, but mixed, so that you may need more than one language to complete the activity.
*They encourage study skills in context, and should therefore be used with a range of appropriate information books which are preferably within reach in the classroom.
*They are generally adaptable over a wide age range because children can bring their own knowledge to an activity and refer to books at an appropriate level. The activities work like catalysts.
*All project activities were planned and developed by teachers working together, and the main reason they are disseminated is to encourage teachers to work more effectively with each other
inside and outside the classroom. They have made it possible for mainstream and language and learning support teachers to share an equal role in curriculum delivery. They should be adapted to
local conditions. In order to help us keep pace with curriculum changes, please send any new or revised activities back to the project, so that we can add them to our lists of materials.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat
Teachers’ Notes
1. Make your own Mystery
We have left space on the cards for your artistic efforts and other items.
2. Paws Pairs
There are probably more cards here than you need for a pairs game, but we have
matched crime and alibi so you can easily divide the set between two groups. We
have provided blank cards for students to produce their own versions.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity
the Mystery Cat
Make your own Mystery!
Work in groups.
Look at the Cards.
Some cards have pictures of things a thief might find useful.
Some cards have pictures of things a police detective might need.
Some cards have pictures of things a thief might steal.
Can you sort them out?
Now choose some of the cards to make a story:
e.g. “ A thief wearing a mask used skeleton keys to steal the number 8 bus..”
Prepare your story to tell to other groups.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat
Make your own Mystery Cards
your pet your dad’s false your English
your television
teeth teacher
a school dinner
your class
your toothbrush your street ticket/pass
exercise books
your CD player money the number 8 bus
your
headteacher
your pen (that is jewels the school bell
why you did not have
it in class)
the school public
address system
(thank goodness!)
soap striped sweater skeleton keys swag bag
mask big black boots dynamite flat cap
ladder magnifying torch rope
glass
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat
Make your own Mystery Cards
crowbar binoculars stethoscope handkerchief
truncheon police car hat handcuffs
grey
rain
coat
walkie talkie wanted posters disguises
finger printing notebook labels and bags
kit
camera
identification binoculars
card
torch
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat - Paws Pairs Cards
Crime Card Alibi Card
Someone stole the English exercise Macavity was discussing ‘Mice and
books. A note with a pawprint was left Men’ with the Head of English when
in their place. the books were stolen.
Crime Card Alibi Card
There is an empty bottle of orange Macavity was visiting the optician
juice in the refrigerator. Someone when the refrigerator was rifled.
sees Macavity with orange round his
whiskers.
Crime Card Alibi Card
Someone sees Macavity with a milk Macavity has a receipt for his milk.
bottle. Milk bottles are missing from
the Prime Minister’s front door.
Crime Card Alibi Card
David Boggle has been kidnapped. The Macavity was at his maths class when
police find his school tie in the alley- David Boggle went missing.
way next to Macavity’s own yard.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat - Paws Pairs Cards
Alibi Card
Forensic experts say that the hair
is not Macavity’s.
Crime Card
Someone drove off with the number
9 bus. The detectives found a ginger
hair at the bus stop.
Crime Card Alibi Card
A policeman is found handcuffed to a Macavity was playing golf with the
lamp post. A straggly whisker is found Chief of Police when the handcuffs
on the ground. went missing.
Crime Card Alibi Card
Someone sees Macavity with Macavity was at a restaurant with
Mungojerrie and Griddlebone trying to his bank manager when the bank lost
divide 5000 by 3. £5000.
Crime Card Alibi Card
Abdul’s goldfish went missing. Macavity Macavity was fishing by the canal
was seen at the fish and chip shop only when Abdul’s goldfish went missing.
buying chips.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat - Paws Pairs Cards
Crime Card Alibi Card
A treaty is stolen from the Foreign Macavity was at a famous restaurant
Office. The police find an envelope with the foreign minister when the
with ‘Treaty’ written on it in Macavity’s treaty was stolen.
back yard.
Crime Card Alibi Card
The Crown Jewels have been stolen Macavity was shopping in the West End
from the Tower of London. The police when the crown jewels disappeared.
find a pawprint on the glass case.
Crime Card Alibi Card
Someone reports seeing Macavity Macavity was having tea with the
walking a dog. It looks like a corgi. Queen Mum when the corgi was
stolen.
Crime Card Alibi Card
Someone steals the spotlights from Macavity was at the cinema when the
the theatre. The police find a theatre spotlights were stolen.
ticket in Macavity’s pocket.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
Macavity the Mystery Cat - Paws Pairs Blank Cards
Crime Card Alibi Card
Crime Card Alibi Card
Crime Card Alibi Card
Crime Card Alibi Card
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
A. Morpeth Weekly News B. The Guardian
Although we have had They want £5000. The Foreign Office reported today
a few successes with It was signed with a that a treaty signed in 1903 between the
attendance this term, pawprint. USA and Britain has been stolen.
a serious disaster has
ruined this record. RAFFLE The Prime Minister told M.Ps. that
one of our hundred Buy a school raffle
the thief had been “typically selfish”.
per cent attenders, ticket. Funds go to
David Boggle, has the David Boggle
been kidnapped. It ransom money fund. In London the police said that
happened on Monday although a scrap of paper had been found
morning as David was SCHOOL FAIR on the stairs, it was only a document on
walking to school at If you have nothing teachers’ wages that had been put in the
8.45 (to get to school to do on Saturday, wrong filing cabinet.
on time). Abdul, his why not run a stall
friend, said that a at the school’s The police are sure that it must
ginger cat had been summer fair. Or have been Macavity, because the theft
following David. bring your own followed the same pattern as the one
Yesterday his Mum Rotweiler or T-bull
at the Admiralty. However, with more
received a ransom terrier to compete
in the lovely tender
crimes looming, the police are unable
note from the
kidnappers. doggie competition. to indict Macavity. As one senior officer
stated, “Macavity is never there!”
C. The Daily Excess D.
Our glorious Queen today is in tears
after the theft of the Crown Jewels from
Shock
Horror
The Scum Only 20p
the Tower of London. How will she cope
with only three and a half billion left in her
MACAVITY STRIKES
account?
Macavity the Mystery Cat is on the Warpath
again. This vicious beast, aged 12, with
Police think that Macavity is the cat ginger hair, is stalking the alleyways of
responsible. However, whenever they find Britain, stopping lawabiding people from
him he is doing long division sums. He is being safe in their beds.
probably working out how much money he
has stolen from our wonderful Queen. One of Even today, Mr and Mrs Reginald Smythe,
loyal Scum readers from Surrey, reported
the corgis has also gone missing. that three pints of best Jersey milk had been
ruthlessly stolen from their spotlessly clean
The cat’s wicked deeds are widely front doorstep.
known. He works with Mungojerrie and
Griddlebone. It is no wonder that standards The Scum says that this cannot go on.
in our country has dropped with such non- Depraved criminal cats should be stopped.
patriotic cats as these. The Scum says: “Drown ‘em all!!!!!”
See inside pages for pictures of our desolate
Queen.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/macavity.pdf
