We had great fun today with our Mystery Skype Challenge. We were one of one hundred New Zealand schools who took part in the challenge. I signed the class up and we were matched up with another school. We had to Skype them and ask Yes or No questions to find out which island they were in, which region, which city/town/location and which school they were from.
The children all had roles - the directors had to keep the class quiet and on track, the ambassadors were the ones who spoke on behalf of our class, the detectives used our devices and google maps to try and figure out where they were, the cheerleaders ran questions between the detectives and the ambassadors and lastly the reporters took photos of everything as it happened.
We had to use team work, listening skills, mapping skills, computer skills, geography skills, questioning skills and many other skills during this challenge.
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| Some of our Detectives on the job |
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| Cheerleaders waiting to run questions from the Detective to the Ambassadors |
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| Using Google Maps to help us |
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| Sam and Kit were busy crossing off places that the Detectives had discounted |
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| Amy and Sierra were the Directors, keeping control for us |
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| Computer skills and map reading skills needed here |
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| Sharna and Slade were wonderful Ambassadors for our class |
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| Poor Pippa was at home sick, but didn't want to miss out so she Skyped in and watched from home |
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| The Ambassador from the other school.
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After about 40 minutes of great questioning from the other school they worked out that we were at Toko School. A couple of minutes later we discovered that they were from Peninsula Primary School in west Auckland. There were lots of similarities between the two schools - no uniform, enviro schools, etc and lots of differences too - city verses country school, we go to Year 8, they go to Year 6, they have 400 kids and we have 150 kids, etc. This whole challenge provided so much fun and such great learning. Everyone was fully involved, enjoyed the experience and learned many new skills - it's just what learning is all about.
Look out for more about what we've been up to this week on your child's blog.
