Connecting the Clues: Three-Category Logic Grids
- Grade band
- 5-6
- Duration
- 45 minutes
- Skill
- Linking clues across a three-category logic grid
- Standards
- RI.5.1 — Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
- MP.1 — Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
- Materials
- Student worksheet with three-part grid (printable, included)
- Two colors of pencil or highlighter
Learning objectives
- Students will be able to record a clue that links two non-person categories (“the camper in the green tent went fishing”) in the correct sub-grid.
- Students will be able to apply a fact from one sub-grid to another (if Ari isn't fishing and fishing goes with green, Ari isn't in the green tent).
- Students will be able to justify each deduction by quoting the exact clue or clues it depends on.
Lesson procedure
- Warm-up (5 minutes) — I Do. Ask: “If the person who brought the cupcakes is the person wearing red, and Mia isn't wearing red — what do we know about Mia?” Let students reason it out, then name the move: a link between two things lets a fact travel from one to the other.
- Tour the grid (7 minutes) — I Do. Show the three-part grid in Part 1. Point out its three blocks: campers × tents, campers × activities, and activities × tents. Model where Clue 1 goes — it doesn't mention a person at all, so it lives in the activities × tents block.
- First deductions together (10 minutes) — We Do. Enter Clues 1, 3, and 4 together. Then read Clue 2 and ask: “Ari didn't go fishing. Fishing is the green tent. So what do we know about Ari's tent?” Mark ✗ for Ari–green together and record the reasoning in the Part 2 table, quoting both clues.
- Finish the case (15 minutes) — You Do. Students complete the puzzle in pairs, filling in at least three more rows of the “quote the clue” table as they go. Encourage two pencil colors: one for marks straight from a clue, one for marks carried over from another block.
- Debrief (8 minutes) — Closure. Ask pairs to share the step that took the longest. Highlight any step where a fact traveled between blocks — that's the skill this lesson is about. Students answer the reflection question.
Printable worksheet
Part 1: The campout case. Four campers each slept in a different color tent and did a different activity. Use the clues to fill in the grid.
- The camper in the green tent went fishing.
- Ari did not go fishing or hiking.
- Cy's tent is blue.
- The camper who went canoeing slept in the yellow tent.
- Bea did not go canoeing.
- Ari's tent is not yellow.
| red | yellow | green | blue | canoe | hike | archery | fish | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ari | ||||||||
| Bea | ||||||||
| Cy | ||||||||
| Dot | ||||||||
| canoeing | ||||||||
| hiking | ||||||||
| archery | ||||||||
| fishing |
Case closed: record your answers.
| Camper | Tent | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Ari | ||
| Bea | ||
| Cy | ||
| Dot |
Part 2: Quote the clue. For each deduction, quote the exact words of the clue or clues that prove it. The first one is done for you.
| Deduction | Clue(s), quoted exactly |
|---|---|
| Ari is not in the green tent. | “Ari did not go fishing” (Clue 2) + “The camper in the green tent went fishing” (Clue 1) |
Reflection. Clue 1 never names a camper. Explain how it still helped you figure out where a camper slept. Quote the clue in your answer.
Background for the teacher
With three categories, a puzzle stops being a single matching problem and becomes three linked ones. The standard “staircase” grid gives each pair of categories its own block: people × tents, people × activities, and activities × tents. The bottom-right corner is shaded because it would compare activities to activities — there's nothing to match there. Clues that never mention a person, like “the camper in the green tent went fishing,” belong in the activities × tents block, and students often skip them because they don't seem to be about anyone.
The key move is transfer: once two items are linked (green = fishing), anything true of one is true of the other. If Ari didn't fish, Ari wasn't in the green tent; if Bea didn't canoe, Bea wasn't in the yellow tent. Most stuck students have all the facts they need but haven't carried them across blocks. Quoting the exact clue wording — rather than paraphrasing — catches a second common error, which is misremembering a negative clue as a positive one.
Differentiation
Support: Give students a version of the grid with Clues 1, 3, and 4 already entered. Post a sentence frame for transfer: “___ goes with ___, and ___ is not ___, so ___ is not ___.”
Extension: Ask students to find a clue that could be removed if a different clue were added, and to prove the new set still has only one solution.
ELL support: Pre-teach the camp vocabulary with pictures (tent, canoe, archery, fishing) and model the phrase “the camper who…” as a way of naming someone by what they did.
IEP/504 support: Split the grid into its three blocks on separate cards so students work with one block at a time, and reduce the “quote the clue” table to two rows. Allow quoting by clue number plus underlining instead of rewriting.
Answer key (for teachers)
Solution. Ari: red tent, archery · Bea: green tent, fishing · Cy: blue tent, hiking · Dot: yellow tent, canoeing.
One solving path. Clue 3 puts Cy in blue. Clue 6 rules out yellow for Ari, and Clue 2 + Clue 1 rule out green (no fishing), so Ari is in red. Ari didn't fish or hike (Clue 2) and canoeing goes with yellow (Clue 4), so Ari did archery. Bea and Dot share yellow and green; Bea didn't canoe (Clue 5), so Bea isn't in yellow (Clue 4) — Bea is in green and went fishing (Clue 1). Dot is in yellow and went canoeing (Clue 4). Cy went hiking.
Part 2 and reflection. Accept any valid deduction with accurate quotations; students should quote, not paraphrase. The reflection should explain that Clue 1 links green and fishing, so ruling out fishing for a camper also rules out the green tent (or vice versa).
Digital extension (optional)
Students who enjoyed this case can keep sleuthing in Sleuth Scouts, where every case starts with a short story premise and a grid to crack. It works well as an early-finisher choice or a family homework option.