All Together Now...

by Merrily Boyd
K-6 Art Teacher

It's a beautiful thing when an art project comes together...especially when that means that ALL the students in a grade level come together to make ONE amazing work of art!

Students in each grade from K-6 have worked to make artwork that will be auctioned off in the spring at our "Celebrate GRACE" event.  Each student worked individually on a small piece that we then combined together into one larger work of art per grade level. 

Kindergarten each painted a fish on newsprint, resulting in a mixed-media school of fish called "We Love Our SCHOOL."  Inspired by the hearts of Jim Dine, first graders made "100 Hearts" by using oil pastels to color one heart with warm colors on a cool-colored background and another heart with cool colors on a warm background.  Third graders used fabric "puff paint" to paint a textured sunflower, which we combined to make a large "Sunflowers" collage inspired by the sunflower paintings of Vincent Van Gogh.  Sixth graders each sculpted and glazed a clay figure or animal that became part of our group Nativity set, which we displayed in the school's trophy case before Christmas.

Kindergarten: "We Love Our SCHOOL"

1st grade: "100 Hearts"

3rd grade: "Sunflowers"

6th grade elective: "Nativity"

Stay tuned for the rest of our group auction projects (currently still in progress)!

Kings of Israel

Image Credit: funhill-games.com

by Mark Edwards
6th grade Strategy Games 

Overwhelmed by hordes of invading nations – and a series of corrupt kings – the fate of Israel is balanced on a knife’s edge! The Northern Kingdom’s only hope is that a band of prophets can cleanse it of evil and idolatry before the wrath of God does so – permanently.

Kings of Israel is a cooperative game that places two to four players in the role of prophets struggling to save their nation from threats both internal and external. Do you have what it takes to overcome the forces of evil? Or will you let Israel succumb to its own destruction?

Image Credit: funhill-games.com

Preaching, Destroying Idols, Building Altars and Making Sacrifices

---

All in a day's work for these prophets!

 

The Art of Buying Low and Selling High

by Mark Edwards
6th grade Strategy Games

This year I wanted to find a great game to introduce the auction/bidding mechanism.  Stefan Dorra's game, For Sale(1997), does just that without adding any complexity or other mechanisms.  The game  consists of sixty cards and some money tokens. 
 

(Image Credit: Justin Case, user Gambiteer on BGG)

The goal is to purchase houses as cheaply as possible at auction and then in the second phase of the game, sell those houses for as much as possible.   

A deck of cards, numbered 1-30, represents houses that range in value from the meager cardboard box(Card #1) all the way up to an out-of-this-world starbase((Card #30).  In a 4-player game four houses are revealed from a shuffled deck.  Then the players place bids for the right to claim the highest valued home.  A player who chooses to pass on bidding gets to take the lowest valued house and must pay half of his bid to the bank.  The sole remaining high bidder gets the highest valued house and must pay the entire bid amount to the bank.  After all the houses are purchased in this manner, gameplay moves to the second phase.

Property and Prosperity

Houses the players have purchased now serve as their hand of cards in the second phase.  A deck of cards that represents buyers is shuffled, and in a 4-player game, four buyer cards are revealed.  Each buyer card has the dollar amount the buyer is willing to pay for a house.  The players each choose a house from their hand and simultaneously reveal it.  The player who reveals the highest house receives the buyer's card with the highest dollar amount.  After all the houses are sold in this manner, the players total up all of their home sales and the highest earner wins! 

Students were thrilled to see a home they purchased for $1000 sell for $15000!

Piñata making begins!

                           Sixth graders create a piñata using traditional paper maché methods.

by Sra. Harrison
TK-6 Spanish