No fooling, on April 1st IAA 5th graders will take part in their first Mystery Skype. Part geography lesson, part 20 questions, students are challenged to locate the location of our Mystery Skype partners. Here are some tips from experienced Mystery Skype students: http://pernillesripp.com/2013/05/13/great-mystery-skype-questions-to-get-you-started/
For the USA
If east of Mississippi:
For Canada:
These are suggestions only! Depending on your answers you have to adapt your questions. We play in a yes/no format where students get to continue guessing until they get a no answer. Then it becomes the other teams turn.
Things we do not recommend doing:
Things we do recommend doing:
For the USA
- Are you in North America?
- Are you in the United States?
- Are you east of the Mississippi?
If east of Mississippi:
- Are you one of the original 13 colonies?
- Do you border a Great Lake?
- Do you border an ocean?
- Do the Appalachians run through your state?
- Do you border Canada?
- Are you Northeast/Midwest/Southeast region?
- Do you border the Gulf of Mexico?
- Are you in the West/Southwest region?
- Do you border the Pacific?
- Do the Rocky Mountains run through your state?
- Do you border Canada?
- Is your state landlocked?
- Are you one of the contiguous states?
For Canada:
- Are you in North America?
- Are you in Canada?
- Do you border a ocean?
- Do you border Alaska?
- Do you border the Hudson Bay?
- Are you landlocked?
- Does your province have a NHL team?
- Do you border the United States?
- Do the Rocky Mountains touch your province?
- Are you north of British Columbia?
These are suggestions only! Depending on your answers you have to adapt your questions. We play in a yes/no format where students get to continue guessing until they get a no answer. Then it becomes the other teams turn.
Things we do not recommend doing:
- Vague questions such as weather related ones unless they are specific.
- Guessing states too quickly.
- Not having a student write down the questions and answers.
- The teacher having their location on their Skype profile.
- Wearing a shirt that represents or is a clue to your location.
Things we do recommend doing:
- Paying attention to the questions that the other team asks – often it gives away clues.
- Paying attention in general.
- Having a sign signaling thinking or someone telling jokes/stories.
- Staying calm and don’t be rude to each other.
- Assigning jobs and sticking to them.
- Having a student-led discussion after the call to discuss success/failures and figure out how to improve.