Local Art Show - "Spooked or Spoofed"

We are excited to kick off our Local Artists theme this year with a field trip to "Spooked or Spoofed: A Celebration of Cryptozoology" at Sharp Museum.

Wed Sep 16

read The Secret Three by Mildred Myrick

do pages 7 & 8 from Games with Codes and Ciphers by Norvin Pallas

read "SIU Museum seeks cryptid-themed art" article from May 15, 2026

circle every word in the article that you think shares a base with < cryptid >

SWI exploration of < crypt >

This was a very rich base to explore! We found three different kinds of affixes (prefix, suffix, connecting vowel letter) and a hyphenated compound.

base word

< crypt >

early 15c., cripte, "grotto, cavern"
from Latin crypta "vault, cavern"
from Greek krypte "a vault, crypt"

see complete entry at etymonline

base + suffix

cryptic

cryptid, cryptids

base + prefix

encrypt, encryption, encrypted, encrypting

decrypt, decryption, decrypted, decrypting

base + connecting vowel letter < o >

cryptocurrency

cryptozoology, cryptozoologist

hyphenated compound words

cryptid-themed

One student circled < creature > because "it seems like it must go," but we did the word sum and found that the base of < creature > is < create >.

Mon Sep 21

review < crypt >

add < cryptology > and < cryptologist > to our list

do pages 9 & 10 ("Why Johnny Had to Stay After School") and 22 & 23 ("Lincoln's Rail Fence") from Games with Codes and Ciphers

Note: If you want to make more of a lesson out of the Cardan grille, Gerolamo Cardano is in Mathematicians Are People, Too: Stories from the Lives of Great Mathematicians (vol. 2, "The Conceited Hypochondriac").

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