If you could build your own treehouse, what would it look like? Using a piece of contemporary art as inspiration, learners draw their own treehouses and add geometric and organic shapes. The lesson touches on Visual Thinking Strategies...

The illustrations of Ezra Jack Keats in The Snowy Day inspire young artists to examine shapes in illustrations and to use these shapes to create their own watercolor resist painting.

Create colorful cool or warm butterflies with simple materials. Class members draw their designs, spray the marker to diffuse the colors, and attach pipe cleaners to form the shape of a butterfly with antennae. Individuals must be able...

Students identify local trees and plants by their leaf shapes and structures, foliage patterns, and colors. They recognize different leaf vien structures, and make labeled prints to show each of them. Students study their leaves and...

Lilly Martin Spencer's "Peeling Onions" is the subject of a series of exercises that model for learners how to use the elements of art to read a painting. A series of worksheets focus viewers' attention on how Spencer uses...

Second graders explore a bag of mixed pattern blocks. As a class they discuss different attributes of these shapes. In this math activity, 2nd graders search to find shapes that are similar by placing shapes on top of one another to...

How do painters use and manipulate light in their artwork to give emphasis and establish mood and emotion? Pupils will analyze a few examples of landscape and portrait painting in order to explore the how light is used in art,...

Students are able to describe earth processes (e.g., rusting, weathering, erosion) that have affected selected physical features in students, neighborhoods. They are able to identify various earth structures (e.g., mountains, faults,...

Is it a calendar? A religious symbol? A political statement? One thing for certain is that Aztec sun stone designs remain an important symbol in Mexican cultural art. Young artists craft their own Aztec Sun design incorporating ideas...

Students study barrel sponges. In this science and art lesson, students discuss what sponges are, create their own sponge, and share what they created with the rest of the class.

Pupils reflect on how many board games they've played have African Americans, their culture or history incorporated within. They identify four street games and three card games that appeal to African Americans. They play the "Prosperity"...

Students discuss methods of building forms with clay (ball and variations, snake, flat sheets). They draw a stick figure of what their sculpture may look like, including correct figure proportion.

Third graders name different kinds of shapes and then discuss what they know about them an what they would like to learn using a K-W-L chart whole group. They listen to the book, THE GREEDY TRIANGLE and then retell it to the class. They...

Sixth graders create replica cave paintings using flowing lines, texture, and earth colors.

Have your class analyze the narrative art in quilts. They identify elements in this domestic art and the stories they tell. They define a story quilt, view an example, and analyze the work of Harriet Power. This is a great lesson to...

Students choose an apple from a larger group of apples and examine it closely. They return their apples to the group and then attempt to identify their own. They discuss how this activity applies to human similarities and differences.

Young scholars analyze and classify sets of pictures using a mathematical classification system and create original works of Art Deco tiles using this new knowledge and four types of symmetry.

Students gain awareness of shapes in architecture by creating a painting of their school and writing a reflective summary of their study of architecture.

Fifth graders discuss the variety of feelings and emotions they may experience when someone or something dies. They identify emotions they have experienced and examine how experiencing a wide range of feelings is normal after the loss of...

Students discuss the paintings of three Chicago painters. They are asked to observe their work and comment on it.

Pupils distinguish geographic features using Ptolemy's map of the world.

Young scholars study the location of Earth's water and study the water cycle using a terrarium. In this water study lesson, students study a model globe for the Earth and find Alaska. Young scholars locate the bodies of water and study...

Students explore Upham Woods at night and investigate about the special adaptations of nocturnal animals. They identify three nocturnal animals and how they are adapted to the night. Students explain what night vision is and how it works.

First graders describe and replicate repeated patterns in nature, in the environment and in works of art. They pand and use variations in line, shape, form, color, and texture to communicate ideas or feelings in work of art. Pupils...