Easter Close Reading Digital Inference Mystery - Who Stole the Easter Eggs?

This Easter close reading inference mystery is a highly engaging Easter activity that challenges students to slow down, read closely, and support their thinking with text evidence. In this classroom investigation, students must carefully read a variety of texts, compare accounts, and identify inconsistencies in order to determine who stole the Easter eggs. This close reading Easter activity moves beyond surface-level comprehension and pushes students to make inferences and justify their conclusions using specific evidence. Designed for collaboration and discussion, this high-interest Easter activity improves inference skills, critical thinking, close reading, and problem-solving, and encourages students to support every claim with text evidence. While this activity is perfect for spring and Easter season, it can also be used any time of year.

Easter Activity Backstory: Grandma Ann is hosting a special Easter celebration for her family, complete with a traditional Easter egg hunt. Each year, her three beloved grandchildren visit to search for the carefully hidden eggs around her home. Just as the hunt is about to begin, Grandma Ann discovers that the Easter eggs have vanished from their hiding spots. Someone stole the Easter eggs, and it’s up to your students to carefully analyze the evidence and determine who is responsible

This is a Google-compatible activity, and students complete all the work on the computer. This works well with distance learning, 1:1 classrooms, remote teaching, Google Classroom, or for online education.

This is included in our best-selling full-year reading program: 
→ Reading Mysteries Digital Program

Included In This Digital Easter Close Reading Activity:

➡️ Easter Activity Presentation Slides: This 15-slide Google Slid presentation guides the entire Easter activity from beginning to end. It introduces the backstory, presents the evidence, and walks students through the final reveal. The slides help structure the inference mystery and provide clear explanations outlining why each suspect is innocent or guilty. The built-in answers make whole-class review simple and easy.

➡️ “Who Stole the Easter Eggs?” Digital Poster: Use this eye-catching digital poster on your projector to immediately hook students into the Easter activity as they enter the room. Posting it on your classroom door or board builds curiosity and sets the tone for the inference mystery activity before the lesson even begins.

➡️ Original Narrative Backstory: This short narrative sets the scene at Grandma Ann’s house on the morning the Easter eggs are discovered missing. Students learn about the planned egg hunt, who was present, and the unusual details surrounding the disappearance. The story establishes the timeline, introduces potential suspects, and provides essential background information students will reference throughout the investigation. Hidden clues and subtle hints are embedded within the narrative, requiring careful close reading and attention to detail.

➡️ A Variety of Digital Clues and Evidence: Students examine a variety of evidence presented in realistic formats, requiring them to read carefully, compare details across sources, and piece together information to build a strong, evidence-based conclusion. The evidence includes an e-invitation, an upholstery cleaning service work order, a childcare instruction list, a social media group, a veterinarian medical report, a text message, a video game chat room conversation, a social media post, and a social media message. Each piece contains relevant details that may support or refute a suspect’s involvement. Students must use close reading and draw logical inferences based on what the texts reveal.

➡️ “Who Stole the Easter Eggs?” Digital Graphic Organizer: This graphic organizer helps students track clues, record important details, and organize their reasoning during the Easter activity. Students list information they learn about the suspects, cite specific evidence, and explain how each clue supports or contradicts their theory. The organizer ensures conclusions are grounded in close reading and text evidence.

➡️ Easter Activity Teacher Answer Key: A detailed answer key is included within the presentation slides. This allows for a dramatic whole-class reveal at the end of the Easter activity.

How The Digital Easter Close Reading Activity Works:

• As students enter, place them into small groups so they can collaborate and begin working together to solve the mystery.

• Use the Google slides to guide you through the close reading activity. The slides help you set up the backstory before they begin analyzing the evidence.

• Distribute the digital evidence to each group, giving students time to read carefully, analyze the details, make inferences, and locate specific text evidence that supports or refutes each suspect. Encourage discussion within groups as they compare ideas and build their case.

• Once each group has made a final prediction, use the presentation slides to reveal the culprit. Review each suspect one by one, walking through the evidence that proves their innocence or guilt so students can clearly see how strong text evidence leads to a logical conclusion.
  
  

What Teachers Are Saying About The Easter Close Reading Activity:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students loved this! I asked them for evidence as to why the person did it and also why they could not have done it to tie in to our lesson on counterclaims for argumentative. As one kid said, "you're giving us something fun so we don't realize we are learning again, aren't you?". He's not wrong!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I absolutely LOVE these activities - and so do my students! I print the handout front/back and have my students give textual evidence to support both for & against it being each suspect. They LOVE solving mysteries. This is my third one purchased.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students ADORE any of these mystery activities! They really get into being the first one to figure everything out. It's also a great way for them to practice some of the skills less practiced on the daily worksheet-type assessments.

If you like this, you'll love this resource:
→ Easter Reading and Writing Bundle

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