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Detectives Lapbook
Created by Jodi Small

                                       

What is a detective?
A detective is an investigator.  They are sometimes a member of a police department or someone who used to be a police officer.  Sometimes detectives work by themselves and are called private detectives or P.I.s.   A detective is a person who solves crimes or helps the police find criminals.  Criminals are people who commit crimes.  Detective work typically requires a great deal of walking.  They use several methods of investigation, or gathering clues, to solve crimes – fingerprints, hair analysis, sketches or pictures, shoe prints, and handwriting analysis.

Detective Graduated Book
Criminal Matchbook

Fingerprints
What are fingerprints?  Fingerprints are ridges on the skin.
Oil, dirt, sweat and ink stick in the ridges in the skin so that when the finger touches something else, like a desk or a glass, the fingerprint remains on the object.  Our fingerprints never change and each one is different.  There are 3 main patterns of fingerprints – the loop, the whorl, and the arch. 

Fingerprints Matchbooks (print on cardstock)
Fingerprints (Types) Flip Flap Book

Fingerprint Experiment Book
Directions:  Get a stamp pad and fingerprint each finger on one hand.  Compare each fingerprint.  What patterns do you see?  Try to count the lines on one fingerprint.  Use a magnifying glass, if necessary.

Fingerprint Dusting matchbook (found in Fingerprints Matchbooks file)
Directions:  Rub your fingers in your hair and/or on your face (where there are plenty of oils.)  Touch a desk or a table.  Get a soft paintbrush and some cocoa powder.  Lightly brush on the cocoa where you touched the desk.  Gently blow off the excess.  Can you see the fingerprint?  Get a piece of clear scotch tape and carefully place it on top of the fingerprint, gently lifting it off the table.  Stick it to the inside of the matchbook.
This is how detectives get the fingerprints from a crime scene.

After a detective has fingerprints from a crime scene, they may have a suspect for that crime.  They will take the suspects fingerprints and compare them to the one’s they have from the scene.  In order to safely say the fingerprints came from the same person, they must have 12 similarities.

Isn’t it amazing that each of our fingerprints are different from anyone else’s?  God made each of us unique.  Choose one translation of the following verse and have your child copy it, fold it and put it in the folder.

Psalm 139:14a (NIRV)
“How you made me is amazing and wonderful.”

Psalm 139:14a (NLV)
“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!”

Psalm 139:14a (NKJV)
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Bible Verse Folder
Bible Verse Paper
Bible Verse Paper NKJV

Hair Analysis
In the process of gathering clues, a detective may come across a piece of hair.  They can use it to examine the roots, size and shape of the hair and compare it to the suspect.  A detective can tell if a person is young or old.  They can also tell if the hair was pulled out, cut off, or fell out.

Hair Comparison Venn Diagram

Experiment: 
Using a clean hairbrush, brush your hair and take out of the brush any that may have come out.  Have a friend or teacher do the same.  Compare the two pieces of hair.  What are some things you notice?  Is the color the same?  Is one thicker than the other?  Is one curlier or straighter than the other?  If you have access to a microscope, you should be able to see some other similarities or differences.  Chart them on your Venn diagram.

Artist Sketches and Mug Shots
Sometimes there is a witness to a crime – someone who saw the criminal perform the crime.  They may not know who the person is, but did get a chance to see them.  Detectives and police stations have artists who are good at drawing a suspect from a witness’s description.  They may have a book with different hairstyles, foreheads, eyebrows, eyes, noses and mouths to give the witness help in describing who they saw.

Sketch Book

Police departments have thousands of pictures of past criminals.  These are called mug shots.  Sometimes a witness is asked to look through that book to see if the person they saw is in there.  However, after hours of looking at that many pictures, they begin to look alike.

Shoe prints
When a shoe print is found at the scene of a crime, a detective can get clues from them such as how big the person’s foot is and how fast the person was walking or running or even the type of shoe they were wearing.  Some methods of gathering clues are measuring the distance between the prints or how long the print is.  They might also look at the angle of the foot.

Finding Footprints Clipboards
Shoeprints Trifold

Handwritten notes
If a note is written in a notepad, the indentations of the pen might go through to the next piece of paper.  This method of investigation might especially be used in a kidnapping situation.  Many times the kidnapper will leave a ransom note.  This note is used to get something the kidnapper really wants.  Most times when a kidnapper takes someone, they are holding that person for ransom – or to get something else they want, like money.

Written Clues Fan
Experiment:
Assemble the fan pieces together.  Write your name, or another note, on the top piece of the fan (not the title page).  Then use the edge of a pencil to very lightly rub over where the writing on the previous page was.  The pencil rubbing will not go into the indentations and you should be able to see what it said.  How many pieces of paper did the indentations go through?  Try it again.  I have included several fan pieces to experiment several times.

A person’s handwriting, especially their signatures, can be unique.  Even if a person is trying to disguise or fool someone, their signatures will still have some similarities.

Handwriting Analysis Flap Book
Blank Flap Book

Experiment:
Using the signatures in the flip flap book, use the following technique.
 

Place the flap over the top of the signature.  The signature should be dark enough to see through the paper.  Place a dot at the top of each letter and connect the dots.  This is the pattern of their signature.  Even if John Doe were to sign his name using a different J or other letter, the pattern should be similar.  I have left a blank flap book so you can try your own.  You will need to use a marker or dark pen so you can see through the top sheet of paper.  Try to sign your name differently.  Do the patterns look the same?   You can also do the same technique using the bottoms of the letters.  This is one way handwriting specialists analyze handwriting to look for forgeries – or someone signing another person’s name.
 

Be a Book Detective – (contributed by Wende)
If your child is reading a detective story this week, have him be a book detective! Note: If your child is reading a book with chapters that stand on their own, such as Encyclopedia Brown, or Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, you can use these lessons for any one chapter. Complete Accordion Fold as you discuss each part of the story.

Plot – Plot is the action of the story. There are five basic elements of plot, which make up a plot line. First is the exposition, which gives you some introductory details and background information. Then comes the rising action, a series of conflicts, which build up towards the climax. The climax is the high point of the story, usually the most intense or exciting. After the climax is the falling action, where a decision or solution is worked at. And lastly is the resolution, the portion of the story where the problem is solved.

Setting – The setting is the time and place in which the story takes place.

Genre – Genre is a French word meaning form or type when referring to literature. There are many genres, including novel, poem, fairy tale, and in the case of detective stories, mysteries.

Point of View – Point of view is the vantage point from which the story is told. In first person point of view, the story is told by one of the characters in the story. In third person point of view, someone outside of the story tells the story.

Characters – The characters are the people in a story.

Order of Events – It is the way a work is organized, the chain of events.