Mystery State Buncee Project! Join the Van Meter 3rd Graders For This New Project!

One of our 3rd grade teachers, Ann Volk, reached out to see if we could brainstorm some ideas for learning and reviewing map and geography skills with her students.  She wanted to do this now and have it also lead up to some Mystery Skype's towards the end of the year.

After a little brainstorming session in her classroom, we came up with a new project that I am so excited about!  It is called the Mystery State Buncee Project! 

In this project, we paired up her students to create Buncee's focusing on two different states, since there are only a small number of students in her class.  They will use Buncee to build their slides to give clues to what their state is, very similar to a Mystery Skype.

We shared this Google Document to share the project and...

...outline the expectations.  You can make a copy here to use with your students too.

As we introduced this project to our students, it was also important that we modeled what our expectations were by creating and showing this Buncee. You can get to the Mystery State Buncee about Iowa here or scroll through the slides above.

The clues start off very broad and get more specific as they go along.  This is how a Mystery Skype works too.

Wanting to focus on geography and reading maps, the clues focused around these type of clues, tying in the the world,

the midwest,

landmarks,

history,

and the state capital to reveal...

...that our mystery state was.... Can you guess?

The last slide in the Buncee was dedicated to the resources used for our Mystery State Buncee.

As I showed this slide, I also talked about the different databases and resources we would be using for their research as they created their Buncee too. 

They will also be using the map in their textbook and the one in their classroom.  

I outlined what each slide should include in the Google Doc.  Each group made a copy of this so they can take their notes right there on each slide. 

They were ready to go and WOW, were they excited!  They were getting into groups before Mrs. Volk even gave them their states to research.  It was awesome! 

She wrote two states down on 9 pieces of paper, let the kids pick their partner, handed out their states and... 

...let them get to work researching and learning about their states. 

It was so much fun watching them research and listening to be extra quiet so no one else would be able to figure out their state. 

When they finish their Mystery State Buncee's, 

they added their projects to the Can You Guess Our Mystery State Buncee's, Buncee Board, which holds all of them.  You and your students can visit the Buncee Board and see if you can guess too! 

After I created that one, I thought....Hey! Let's invite others to create Mystery Skype Buncee's too! 

Please join us with your kids and create Mystery State Buncee's too! 

Feel free to use this link to the Google Doc as it will direct you and your students to make a copy.

Then have them add their Mystery State Buncee's to this Buncee Board.

All of our students will can then research, practice their geography and map skills, and guess the sates of the Buncee's!  And then, let's talk about teaming up to do lots of Mystery Skype's too!

Have fun and let us know if you have any questions.