Who Cracked Humpty Dumpty’s Shell?

Find out once and for all who attempted to murder Humpty Dumpty! This mystery is packed with popular nursery rhyme characters such as: the itsy-bitsy spider; the muffin man; three blind mice; Little Miss Muffet, and more!

This lesson includes: instructions on how to play; extension activities; a setup story; a list of clues; a list of characters and detailed character descriptions; character worksheets and a detective checklist! Below is the setup story and an example of a character description.

The Story…

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. You probably thought this was just some made-up nursery rhyme – but it actually happened, and now it’s your job to piece together what happened and who’s to blame for this tragedy! Last night, Humpty Dumpty was found, shattered, at the bottom of his wall! A fairy tale detective was brought in, and Mother Goose and the other nursery rhyme characters are waiting to be questioned. Was it merely an accident by a clumsy Humpty Dumpty? Or did something more sinister take place? Good luck ‘cracking’ (ha ha, get it?) this egg-citing mystery!

Character Description Example

Little Miss Muffet– Little Miss Muffet, fed up with sitting on a tuffet (whatever that is) and eating curds and whey (gross!) and getting scared by a spider (ick!), has moved into the restaurant business, and now operates a small café on Main Street called “The Over Easy.” She is very pretentious, and uses fancy long words that sound completely made-up, but no one dares to correct her. Little Miss Muffet was heartbroken by Humpty’s fall because Humpty was the first to invest in her business back when she started it.