Tag Archives: mystery number

Our First Mystery Number Skype!

I shared our first Mystery Skype experiences with Ms. Turken’s brothers last week and how great the were.  After those two great starts, I hit up my Twitter friends to find our next Skype opportunity.  Instead of a location Skype, though, I had an offer for a Mystery Number Skype.  

We got our day started by answering a easel question that asked: “If you wanted to figure out my mystery number, what questions would you ask?”  We practiced with how to ask things that would put the numbers into groups, or to narrow down the whole 100s chart into smaller pieces, rather than just ask “Is it 47?” or “Is your number 82?”

We had a few practice rounds, using 2-digit numbers less than 50 (because we had agreed upon this with our Skyping friends), and then we were ready to go!

Armed with 100s charts and super math questioning skills, we called our new friends, who were in Kansas.

One of the things I love about doing Mystery Skypes (numbers and locations) is watching how kids step to the plate, so to speak, and try things they are unsure about.  In this situation, kiddos seem to be more willing to take risks and try things that they aren’t sure is totally correct, to throw out ideas that may not work.  Kiddos who may not be first to speak up in class volunteer to ask questions and talk to the other class, and we meet new friends in new places that we can solve problems with–why would you NOT do Mystery Skypes all the time??

I was excited to hear kiddos use the vocabulary we had used on our practice runs, like LESS THAN, GREATER THAN, EVEN, ODD, as well as TENS and ONES.  They worked hard to then mark their 100s chart to match the information they were receiving from their friends, and in the end we figured out their number was 20!!

And, you can see in the picture, that our number was 39, which they guessed correctly, too!! 🙂

Who wants to do a Mystery Number Skype with us?  We’re keen to try again, and soon we’ll be ready for a 3-digit number!!

Another Number Skype–Inside Robinson!

On Friday we were able to have another Mystery Number Skype, with some friends INSIDE ROBINSON!  We’ve done this before, the last time I taught 1st grade when we were learning to Skype and we called Ms. Turken’s class who was in Mrs. Fry’s classroom.  This time we answered a call from Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Bell and talked to their second graders.  We were excited!

We are getting so good at this and at asking questions that knock out a large group of numbers at once.  Our 2nd grade friends guessed our number and we did, too!  What a great way to practice what we know about numbers and place value!

Do you want to Skype with us, too?  Leave a message here, or tweet to us at @jbeardensclass@jbeardensclass.  WE LOVE TO CONNECT!

Our First MYSTERY NUMBER SKYPE!!

I was so excited to get my kiddo started on some “techy” type things and so today was a great day–we did our first MYSTERY NUMBER SKYPE!  What’s a Mystery Skype you ask?  What’s a Mystery Number Skype? (Check those out so you can get the big idea–believe me, they are one of the coolest things we do in Rm. 202!

Well today was the day!  I hadn’t really made a big deal about it, which was fine because they didn’t know what it was anyway, but boy did they pick it up quickly!  I explained the general idea (we have a number and the other class has a number and we use a 20-Question type game to figure out each others’ numbers), and then we practiced with the number 18.  We talked about words we might use (like greater than/less than, tens place/ones place), and ways we could cross off the most numbers at once (we kept track together on a hundreds chart) and then matched up with a partner to plan for what we would ask.

img_4531

At 9:30 we were ready, and our Skype phone rang!

img_4540

We answered and got right to work.  Our first point of business (after we said hello, of course!) was to figure out who would ask the first question.  We did so with rock/paper/scissors!

We won (rock over scissors!) and asked the first question.  Eventually we will have jobs for each kiddo, and will keep track of our questions for future reference, but for now we were lucky to have Mrs. Sisul tweet for us! Here’s an example (and you can check out the rest of the session on our class feed at @jbeardensclass) of what happened!

Rm. 202 kiddos did such a great job and were SUPER excited when in just about 5 or 6 questions we got to the point where we could guess their mystery number!

What a great start to our Mystery Skyping journey! We are ready to go and excited for our next call!  Who’s in?  If you’re interested, please leave us a comment so we can get in touch with you!

Mystery NUMBER Skype

This year we finally did a Mystery Skype with someone that wasn’t inside our school.  Remember that from last year?  It really was pretty cool anyway.

I have a friend, Jen Bartin, who teaches 2nd grade at another school in our district, who was looking to do her first Mystery Skype as well, and we decided a good first try would be with a mystery number rather than location.  Nope, that wouldn’t be very hard to figure out.

Unlike a typical Mystery Skype, we needed a hundreds chart instead of a map.  We got ourselves into pairs and brainstormed what kinds of questions we could ask to narrow down the number.  We had done this kind of thing before as our Math Warm-Up, as well as a game we play during Math Workshop.  The part that we hadn’t done was talk to another class over our computer while also answering questions about our own mystery number.  But we were excited and prepared.

While we chatted, kids took turns at the computer asking and answering a question.  Ja’Mia and Ella Marie were in charge of writing down the questions each class asked, and Landen and Amelia had the important task of marking the 100s chart to narrow down the choices as we got information from our answers.

IMG_0989

It didn’t take us long, but it took them even less time to figure out our number was 62.  We did a great job of asking broad enough questions that we crossed of lots of numbers, but specific enough ones that we finally got it right.  This was fun and we were ready to do another one!!

 

2nd Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of March 22-25, 2016

We are back from Spring Break!!  We quickly got back into the swing of things with our morning routine, and I was trying to focus on spiraling back around to topics we haven’t touched for a while.  We also had a Mystery Number Skype scheduled for Friday, so the problem that day was specifically designed to help that thinking.

Tuesday

IMG_1027-min

Thursday

IMG_0998-min

Friday

IMG_1003-min