Dick Blick Art Materials
Glue Paint Symmetry Prints
Add watercolors to white glue, paint onto clear film paper, fold, open, and voila, a butterfly! This art project, designed for special education classes, but perfect for any classroom, is sure to engage your young artists.
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind Curriculum Activity: Performing Arts
The classical arts have made a lasting impact on our society and your advanced learners get to find out why. The activity starts as the children create a list of the arts found in society, they discuss how these art forms impact their...
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 1
"Now is the summer of our happiness/Made winter by this sudden, fierce attack!" Luke Skywalker meets Hamlet in a 10-lesson plan unit based on Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope. Using Star Wars® as...
Curated OER
Looking and Learning in the Art Museum - Lesson 1
Explore the artistic elements in artworks with an original and reproduction instructional activity. As learners recognize the difference between an original and a reproduction, they discuss the artist elements used in the...
Curated OER
Making Paper: Recycled Art
The advent of paper has made a huge impact on society and we wouldn't be the same without it. This project allows learners to explore and create paper of their own using recycled materials. The how-to is all laid out, just follow the...
Curated OER
Community Through Northwest Coast Art & Traditions
Students view video and watch an artist create a potlatch (gift necklace). In this community and resources instructional activity, students understand the culture of Northwest Coast Art & Traditions . Students...
Smithsonian Institution
Braiding Rhythms: The Role of Bell Patterns in West African and Afro-Caribbean Music
Africans transported to the Caribbean as part of the transatlantic slave trade brought with them a rich tradition of music and dance. Four lessons teach young musicians the rumba clave rhythm, cascara rhythm, and the 6/8 bell patterns...
Curated OER
Art and Artists: Diversity of Learners Adaptation
Learners determine the style of place cards as well as how to display phots of artwork. They organize and design an art museum for parents and other students to enjoy. Learners create place cards to explain the artwork, artist, as well...
Curated OER
Famous Picture
Art is a thoughtful and beautiful to motivate students in so many subjects. This lesson has students practice basic computer skills while examining a famous piece of art. They consider the color, style, and feeling of the piece. A...
Curated OER
1920s Variety Show
To better understand the cultural achievements of the Harlem Renaissance and become familiar with its major figures, class members examine a painting by Aaron Douglas and a poem by Langston Hughes and compare how the artists develop...
Curated OER
Learn Under the Old Masters
Students take a closer look at portraits. In this art appreciation instructional activity, students may visit the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria Art Gallery, or the Scottish National Portrait Gallery online or in-person to...
Curated OER
The View From Here
Study the beauty of the landscape around you with an innovative art lesson. After discussing the foreground, background, and middle ground of landscape art, kids work on making their own piece of landscape art. The lesson provides...
Curated OER
You Call That Art? - Activity 1
Learners formulate a definition of art in the introductory lesson for a unit on various art forms. The learning emphasis is placed on Oregonian artist Duff Severe and reflective writing. Learners compose an essay describing various art...
Curated OER
Research, Production, and Presentation of Abstract and Pop Art
Students analyze Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. They view and discuss artworks by Warhol, Lichenstein, Pollack, and Kandinsky, research a specific artist, and create an art piece in the style of their chosen artist.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read the...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Short Story Writers Say
There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson plan in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author...
Curated OER
Flora and Fauna as Figures of Speech
What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts lesson. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...
University of Minnesota
Beautiful Brain: Step Inside the Brain
Before digital microscopes, scientists hired artists to draw the things visible in the microscope. Through training in neuroscience and art, Cajal revolutionized the way we view the beautiful brain. The third instructional activity in a...
Curated OER
Animal Self-portrait Mosaics: A Visual Arts Elective
Out-lined here is a two-week procedure that has the class creating ceramic animal tiles that are metaphorical representations of their own personalities. They discuss animal images found throughout history, what they mean, metaphor, and...
Curated OER
Our Wonderful Stories: Lesson Plan 5
The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...
Dick Blick Art Materials
“Gawu” — African-influenced Tapestry
Here's a great way to combine environmental science with art. Kids use recycled materials to create their own Gawu, a tapestry made of discards. Although designed for special education classrooms, the activity is sure to engage all...
Curated OER
My Secret War: Lesson 5
Fifth graders determine how freedom comes with rights and responsibilities through literature and poetry about World War II. In this World War II lesson, 5th graders use the letters in the word "infamy" to write an acrostic poem. They...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 13: Going Deeper Mini-Lesson
November is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month! If your class is participating (or simply doing a narrative writing unit), this peer review lesson is part of a larger unit which can be easily found online. Once your writers have...
Curated OER
Heroes Portrait
Eighth graders investigate art appreciation and Renaissance portraits through time. They create a portrait.