Last year, I debuted this "graph an Israeli flag on the coordinate plane" activity in my 6th grade classes. This activity was very successful! I would estimate it takes about 30 minutes to make one graph (I had 15, so two different groups of students made each graph.) Not every group finished, but I just needed a few good finished copies. The kids enjoyed the activity regardless, though some of them got frustrated when they started with markers, made errors and then could not fix them.
Supplies are essential! I did not have enough yardsticks (you need one per group) and blue markers. You need 1 thin blue marker per group and 1
thick blue marker per person. Crayola does not appear to sell boxes of thin markers that are all blue. You don't actually need to do much with the thin markers. They are primarily useful to number the axes.
It is important for visibility that the
Magen David is made with a thick marker. You can outline with a thin marker, but you'll need to trace over with a thick one for it to be seen, as you can tell in the difference between these two graphs.
One last change: I used axes that were not blue, and I thought it looked good. The goal of contrast was that the axes not impede the visual of the
Magen David.
This was fun. I'm hoping to do it again this year!
