Fun Activities That’ll Turn Your Kid into a Sleuthing Genius

Photo: Melissa Hillier (CC-BY 2.0)

You’re a complete escape game fanatic, and you've only got so much time to make sure your kids follow in your footsteps.

Luckily, it’s not too hard to get your kid hooked on all things sleuthing, code breaking, and problem solving. Why? Because these things are super fun.

Observe:

Clue

A complete classic, the board game Clue—or Cluedo, if you’re outside North America—has made detectives out of many generations of kids. It’s nearly 70 years old, but it’s still one of the best ways to introduce young kids to the wonderful world that is sleuthing.

Spy kit

Remember writing secret messages to your friend in invisible ink and—just to make it extra secure—using a decoder ring? Of course you do! Spy kits have come a long way since you were a kid though: now they include things like audio enhancers and UV flashlights. Jealous? Us too.

Harriet the Spy and Encyclopedia Brown

What better role model for budding escape game enthusiasts than successful detectives who are around their own age? Harriet the Spy and Encyclopedia Brown both have some solid tips to pass along to sleuths in training, whether in book or TV form.

Scavenger or treasure hunt

Summer holidays mean camping, and camping means no internet (if you’re doing it right, that is). Curious kids plus the great outdoors makes for a great opportunity to devise one of the greatest scavenger hunts your children have ever seen. Turn up the difficult by making a clue list and requiring a compass and map, and your kids’ problem-solving muscles will get a hefty workout.

Kid-friendly escape game

It can be surprising how quickly kids, even young ones, can figure out clues in escape games that even adults have trouble with. Make sure the theme is age appropriate (maybe try our Alice in Wonderland room rather than the Saw one!) and watch your kid kick your butt at your next escape room experience.

Book an escape room at Krakit for you and your family here: http://bookeo.com/krakit

Top 10 Pint-Sized Private Eyes

“What question can you never answer yes to?”

It’s a riddle kids will almost always get correct and many adults will struggle over. Why? Simply because adult and kid brains function differently. Children don’t have as many years of experience to guide their judgment—and it also isn’t clouded by experience, which can lead adults off on completely misguided tangents.

That’s why playing an escape game with a kid can be full of surprises. The adults on the team may get seriously stuck on a clue, while the youngest of the group solves it in no time flat. Sometimes it just takes a different point of view to see the answer clearly.

Below, we pay tribute to some of the cleverest kid detectives on the block. They’d definitely have our escape rooms cracked.

10. The Bobbsey Twins

They may be a pair of mostly boring goody-two-shoes, but they can’t be left off the list. With their first mystery adventure published in 1913, the Bobbseys are the godfathers of kid detectives.

9. The Ghostwriter Crew

The adolescent gang from this 1990s TV series never failed to impress (and seemed so hip!). However, their mystery solving abilities were greatly aided by a ghost who pointed them in the right direction... So they definitely don’t deserve to top the list.

8. Hardy Boys

Though they’re the straight-laced, muscle-bound counterpart to Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys haven’t had as much cultural staying power. However, they’re also part of the original gang of kid detectives—with their first mystery published in 1927—so there’s no forgetting them either.

7. Nancy Drew

She has a name as synonymous with mystery as Sherlock. However, despite spending her spare time doing something super cool—solving crimes—she just seems so boring. (Although, being born in 1930, we have to forgive her propriety.)

6. Shirley Holmes

She’s the great-grandniece of Sherlock Holmes and her series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes was pure CanCon gold—and even had a few Ryan Gosling cameos. What else is there to say?

5. The Goonies

The Goonies never meant to be sleuths—it was a role thrust upon them. But they nevertheless solve the mystery of One-Eyed Willy’s hidden treasure with aplomb and save the day through teamwork. Well done, lads!

4. Veronica Mars

To be a truly great private investigator, you need a great deal of sass. Veronica Mars, though still a teenager, has a great deal of sass. And determination, and stealth, and wit. A model all kid detectives should aspire to.

3. Harriet “the Spy” Welsch

Harriet the Spy: the archetypal weirdo outsider who just wants to see the world for what it really is—and maybe collect some much needed intelligence along the way. She just records it like she see it, folks. She’s definitely now working for the CIA.

2. Encyclopedia Brown

Detail-oriented and methodical Encyclopedia has solved literally dozens of crimes and hasn’t aged a day past ten. Plus he gives a chance for his readers to figure out the solutions themselves. What a guy!

1. Penny from Inspector Gadget

Inspector Gadget’s pigtailed niece is an incredibly overlooked kid detective. The classic '80s cartoon was probably such a hit among kids because it was always Penny and her dog Brain—not her uncle—who solved each episode’s mystery.

Be outplayed by your clever kids at our Vancouver escape rooms this Spring Break by booking a family-friendly game at Krakit here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.

Oh, and the answer to the riddle at the start? “Are you asleep?”