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Welcome To Odyssey Land!

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The ninth grade ELA classes spent the majority of first quarter reading and learning about Homer's The Odyssey, the story of the great Odysseus’ ten year journey back home to Ithaca after ending the Trojan War. Through monsters, sea beasts, sirens, and battles with Greek Gods, Odysseus (spoiler alert!) made it home to his wife and son. 

After reading their way through this adventure, students in Mrs. Sheila Sledden's World Literature classes created an Odyssey Theme Park. The students worked within groups to create models of rides, restaurants, a gateway, and water park. Their efforts resulted in a fun and well thought out amusement park that reflected the classic epic adventure.

“The students have been studying and researching the Iliad, The Odyssey, the Trojan War, Greek Mythology and ancient Greece, which can be heavy material. This project gave them an opportunity to show their creative sides while showcasing the information they had gathered during their research,” said Mrs. Sledden. 

Sophia Ralph, Josie Hurley, and Bennett Vesper grouped together to create, “Hector’s Spinning Spear,” a ride where individuals sit in seats within the spear and get spun around in a full circle in the ultimate thrill ride!

“We wanted to represent the beginning of the story during the Trojan War,” explained Ralph. “We were given a lot of freedom for creativity.” 

“It was fun to work together and turn what we learned into something creative!” agreed Vesper. 

A project where students not only learned academic material but were also able showcase all their knowledge in a fun and creative way!

Middle School Art Students Capture Life In The Lowcountry

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We are blessed to live in the Lowcountry, surrounded by waterways--marshes, ocean, beaches, creeks, swamps, lagoons. Just as Jesus is our living water (John 7:37-38), the Lowcountry is filled with life because of our waterways. We have seafood, wildlife, birds and people coming from all over the world because of the water and life here. In fifth grade through eighth grade, students have been working on observational drawings from life and photo references. Learning to "see" the world around them opens new worlds for art students to study value, light, shadow and form. We began with value pencil drawings of shells, each grade with advanced complexity, and then moved into Lowcountry creatures in fifth grade (oil pastel and chalk pastel), sixth grade marshes (chalk pastel), seventh grade marshes (oil pastel) and eighth grade Angel Oak trees (charcoal and chalk). Learning how to control messy materials is a valuable lesson. In art, we aim to expose students to many media and techniques so that when they arrive in high school art and beyond, they are able to know which material will be the best solution to achieve an artistic goal. 

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