Mystery Skype!

On Thursday, we had our first Mystery Skype lesson. It was so much fun! Lots of us thought it was one of our favourite lessons of the year!

We arranged to speak to a 'mystery' class of children from somewhere else in the world, at 2pm (our time) on Thursday. The challenge was for each class to work out the location of the other class.

Each class had been split into groups with children doing certain jobs. In our class we had; greeters, sharers, mappers, recorders and group leaders.

Each class took a turn to ask a Yes or No question to the other class. We had to use the information they gave us, along with atlases and Google maps, to narrow down where they might be. For example, we asked questions such as 'Are you in the northern hemisphere?' and 'Is your country currently playing in the football World Cup?' We listened carefully to their answers, as they helped us to rule out areas of the world. Each group had a blank map to cross off areas that we had ruled out.

After a few questions, we had discovered that the other class were in the USA. Next we had to find their state. We asked some questions such as, 'Is your state land-locked?' and 'Is your state south of Colorado?'

We soon discovered that they were in Missouri.

Source: New World Encyclopedia

Then it got trickier! We were trying to find their town, but their teacher, Mr. White, told us that their town was very small with a population of less than 700! They generously gave us a couple of clues, by answering our questions with a little more information than 'Yes' or 'No'. We found a town called Monett, which seemed to be near where they lived. They told us that their town was south east of Monett.

Finally we found that they were in Wheaton, Missouri!

Once we had found their town and they had found ours, we had a chat. We asked them about their town and school and they asked about ours.

They were not impressed that we only had 6 weeks summer holiday- we were very jealous that they have 2.5 months! We discussed our school uniform, which sports we like to play and how our weather is very different to the weather in Missouri. It was fantastic to meet some children from another country! The lesson was brilliant for practising our geography skills, our listening skills and for finding out about life in another country. It was a wonderful lesson!

Thank you Wheaton Elementary School, Mr White and Mrs Harmon!