Midwinter Mysteries

Last year, Lizz made a "murdered snowman" out of construction paper for a Midwinter Mysteries display.  It's so cool that we're doing it all over again this year--with, of course, a couple new twists.

I made a "newspaper" to advertise the Midwinter Mysteries display--it ties in with the snowman theme and will be both taped to walls and set out for students to grab as they pass by.  And, it's silly.

When Lizz and I sat down a couple weeks ago to plan Midwinter Mysteries, our idea of having a Clue board game tournament morphed into the creation of a special Blake edition of the game of Clue.  The victim is the school mascot, Cyrus Bear.  Teacher become "Suspects" (PhotoShopped into the guises of Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard and the rest).  "Weapons" become school equipment like a Bunsen burner, a textbook, and a hole punch.  I took photos of rooms around the school, printed those photos, and taped them to an old Clue board ($2.99 at the local thrift store) so when you play, you really can roll the dice, move your pawn, and guess "Mrs. Peacock, with the MacBook, in the Library" (of course the library is a crime scene!).  I had great fun making it; hopefully the kids will get a kick out of it too.

This week's window display ties in to the mystery theme, too--we're featuring superheroes and comic book crime fighters.  Most of the books are graphic novels or comics collections (Batman, The Watchmen, Hellboy, the hilarious anti-superhero The Helm by Jim Hardison, etc.) but we found some interesting novels on our shelves too--Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, with its Comics Golden Age setting and plot; the quirky coming-of-age story The Adventures of the Blue Avenger by Norma Howe; a little gem called Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask by Jim Munroe.  I'm hoping this display will circulate a bit more than others.  'Cause kids like superheroes, right?