Mystery Number Skype

We’ve been having weekly Skype calls with Ms Lirenman’s class in Surry, BC to play “Guess Our Mystery Number” and to improve our sense of numeracy. We’ve been slowly building up to larger numbers. This week we used the numbers up to forty. This is what it looked like during the call as Ms Lirenman’s class tried to guess our number (you can see it taped on the calendar in the top right of the picture).

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And then we tried to guess their number. You can see that we were getting very close.

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Getting Answers

Part of our curriculum is learning how to ask questions and where to get the answers. This week we had our first Skype call of the year as we asked an “expert” to answer some of our many questions.

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Rhyming

Kim Cooper Skyped into our classroom today to help the students learn to hear rhymes in text. She read a rhyming book and asked the students to tell her the words on each page that rhymed. It was tricky, but the students got better at hearing the rhymes as the book progressed.

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Connected Measurement

Yesterday we had fun playing with measurement while we connected with Ms Lirenman’s class in Surrey, who are learning the same things we are. The emphasis in both of our curriculums is on comparing items using words such as longer, shorter, heavier etc.

First, someone in our class and someone in Ms Lirenman’s class each picked an item which we showed to the other class via Skype. Then, we randomly picked a card to see whether the winning item would be longer or shorter. The students decided which class had the longest or shortest item. (Sometimes each class had to measure with a ruler to know for sure.) We kept score and fortunately, our classes were tied at the end of this game!

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Then, each class moved a balance scale in front of the camera, and the children took turns showing two items. Everyone in both classes predicted which item would be heavier by putting both hands on their head for one item or in their lap for the other. Those who were unsure could put one hand in each place. Some of the items were surprising!

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Mystery Number

Ms. Lirenman’s class in Surrey, British Columbia, is also learning about numbers up to twenty, so my class challenged hers to a mystery number Skype. We chose a number between one and twenty and they tried to guess what our number was by asking questions that could be answered with a “yes” or a “no”.

Their first question was, “Is it nine?” They were right!

Then we tried to guess their secret number. We had previously played the mystery number game in our class, so we knew some “fat” questions to ask such as “Does it have two digits?” but sometimes the temptation to ask “Is it four?” was just too much to resist. Finally, after lots of work eliminating numbers, we guessed it. We also let them have another turn because they were finished their turn so quickly the first time.

Mystery Number Skype

We had fun learning with your class, Ms. Lirenman! We hope we can do it again soon.