Skyping with SOUTH AFRICA!

Today we were super lucky as Mr. S. from Cape Town South Africa stayed up really really late so that he could skype into our classroom.  Mr. S loves math and he loves sharing math lessons with children around the world.  Ms. Lirenman met Mr. S through a group she is part of on Skype called Hello Little World Skypers.  Anyhow today after Run Across Canada Mr. S skyped in all the way from Cape Town, South Africa!

Unfortunately we didn't get to meet any of his students because it was almost midnight his time when we met but he did show us a few magic tricks.  After he  played a game with us.   He asked us questions but we couldn't answer with a yes, no, or maybe. We couldn't even nod our heads. It was tricky though because he'd ask us a question which we would answer, and then he would quickly ask us another one that we would typically answer with a yes or a no.  For example he may have said, "What is your favourite fruit?" and then as soon as you answered - say you said bananas -  he would say, "Do you like bananas?"  The obvious answer was yes, but we couldn't say the word yes.  He tricked a lot of us into saying yes, or no, or maybe. The lesson behind the game was that we need to think before we speak and not just speak with out thinking first.  How many of you really think about what you are saying before you say it?

Mr. S. also challenged us to determine if the circumference of an empty toilet roll was bigger or smaller than the height of an empty toilet role. He taught us about circumference.  We were fooled again but  learned something in the process.  He told us to try and trick our families at home.

It was very cool to be taught by someone other than our own teacher, and especially by someone that lives so far away from us.  Ms. Lirenman keeps saying she needs to get a world map into our classroom so that we can put a pin in to represent everyone we have connected with and where they live in relation to us.  We better hold her to that.

Here are some more photos of the skype call.  The cool thing is the photos above were taken by Ms. Lirenman and the photos below were taken by Mr. S.  Now we know what we look like on the other side of the skype call.  Enjoy.