Sixth-grade artists design their own games

Students gathered after school to play games they designed themselves in an art class.

BOARDMAN — Sixth-grade students at Glenwood Middle School boxed the board games by Mattel and Hasbro on Wednesday in favor of some games of their own.

The students gathered after school for a "game day," where they played games they designed in an art class.

Students in Sandi Bates’ sixth-grade art class were assigned the group project. Their marching orders were to design the rules and game boards and to make pieces out of clay. The result was a cafeteria full of anxious sixth-graders.

“They're very, very excited about their games,” Bates said.

Themes of the games ranged from Michael Jackson to a queen who has hidden her crown.

“It was very fun, the fact of making it and pushing yourself and working with your friends,” said Matt Perham, 11.

Matt was playing “Golden Gloves,” a game that requires going around a rectangular board three times, collecting and losing money, before getting to the center. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins, said Evan Knoll, the game's 12-year-old creator.

Several students said that their favorite part of the project was getting to work with friends.

“It’s different than any other project we’ve done,” said Krista Johnson, 12. "We liked it a lot because we got to work with other people."

Group work, Bates said, is a hidden lesson for the sixth-graders. Choosing the right group is as important as working with friends, she said.

“If somebody got out of line, [well] they chose them,” she said. “Because they chose their groups, they worked beautifully.”

Sharon Dang, 12, was playing the game Meepolopoliss, a combination of Monopoly, Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.

Dang said that working with her friends was challenging at times.

“Some people were being bossy,” she said.

Other students said that devising game rules that made sense was difficult, too.

“We had to try to make it make as much sense as it possibly could,” said Alisa Hutter, 12.

Bates said that the group project is unusual in an art class but that it worked well.

"Art is almost always individual, but I enjoyed seeing them work together," she said. "It's a wonderful way to learn."

One goal of the project, Bates said, was to show how art can be used to teach other skills as well.

The district is realigning its middle schools next year, and students will receive only one year of art instruction in either fifth or sixth grade, Bates said.

“It’s kind of a sad thing. Some kids, this is really where they shine,” she said. “If I could show how a project is like real life, people would understand.”