This week our class laid out board games. Based on a Halloween theme of a pumpkin patch, each student created a meandering path across a poster board, divided it into sections and filled it with four colors. We then decorated the board with pumpkins, gravestones and haunted houses. One child even made a pumpkin lake, a huge oval filled with pumpkins, which he thought was hilarious. Next week we'll make four-sided dice to roll and create a set of playing pieces from Crayola model magic.
UPDATE: The projects turned out great! The first and second graders had a bit of difficulty making pyramid dice from the Model Magic so I assisted with that, but otherwise we had a lot of fun making Halloween themed playing pieces. We made little pumpkins, ghosts and black cats. The dice were made from four-sided pyramids, with the top points flattened and colored with markers. This made for a nice alternative from the usual six-sided die and allowed us to have the pieces move ahead based on the color rolled, rather than a number. A few observant students pointed out that this is how the game Candy Land works, with a path of alternating color squares, although that game involves picking cards. We finished with enough time to play a few rounds of the game and enjoyed playing with our creations. See more posts about this game design class →