I teach Grade 5 in the east end of Toronto. Twenty-six kids, mostly from immigrant families, the kind of room where attention has to be earned and not assumed. I used Sherlock Bones in class last March.
I had explained owl pellets the week before. Half the room was politely bored. Then we sat down with the game and I let them go. Within twenty minutes one of my quietest students — a girl whose family moved here from Bangladesh last year — was explaining to a small group how to tell a vole skull from a shrew skull. By name. With confidence.
What your team has built does not feel like an educational product. It feels like an invitation. Every kid in that room knew that the bones were real, that the owl was real, and that nobody had simplified the puzzle for them. That is rare enough in K-12 that I am writing to thank you for it.
If you ever build a second case I will be the first to download it. And if you ever come through Toronto, my classroom would like to host you.
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