Budding artists experiment with balance and movement as they learn about Alex Calder and his kinetic sculptures. They'll view several of Calder's pieces and review biographical information, then they'll work through the artistic process...

Art projects are great ways to stimulate all the senses. Learners with visual impairments create art to better grasp the concept of day and night. They'll discuss the ways they know the difference in the time of day, the animals that are...

Explore Mexican culture and art history through active participation in research and painting. The class discusses and researches the life and art of Diego Rivera, then they paint wonderful murals inspired by his representations of...

In need of a neat idea that incorporates technology skills, art, and history? Young art historians will each select an old photograph from a local archive to digitally restore. The primary focus is to add color, clarity, and remake the...

Go on a shopping trip to practice estimation, price value, and shopping skills. The class heads off to the market to purchase several items for the activity. While they are there, they discuss the cost of various foods and even...

What to wear today; such a vexing question. Spend some time introducing the names, fabrics, types, colors, and functions of various articles of clothing to your class. Each child will take turns asking each other what they are wearing....

Playing pretend with real objects or concepts is a wonderful way for learners to make object-to-action connections, as well as practice daily living skills. Learners with visual and intellectual disabilities use a wide variety of real...

Bingo is a super fun game and can be used to reinforce a vast number of recognition skills. These bingo cards are prepared by constructing nine squares, each delineated with raised Wikki Stix or gluedyarn and containing a...

Organization is of the utmost importance when teaching orientation and mobility to learners with visual impairments. To help keep everything in order and provide independence, use these instructions for making a desk organizer. The...

Games are great for practicing any number of basic skills. Here is a set of wonderful instructions for making a braille version of a spinning game, where children win points by correctly reading/identifying the high-frequency words the...

If you make a meal, you must clean up the mess. Foster a sense of independence while having learners practice a skill they can use in the workplace. Teens with visual impairments practice cleaning, organizing, stacking, and sorting a...

Poetry is a wonderful way to explore language, express topical understanding, and incite creative thinking. After a trip to the local natural history museum (or zoo), learners write an acrostic or a cinquain poem describing one of their...

Different animals live in different habitats, and each animal has specifically adaptive traits that make them tailor-made for their environments. This is true on land and in the ocean. Little ones examine how various marine animals have...

Bycatch is a sad reality for many sea turtles, dolphins, and sharks; it occurs when they get unintentionally caught in commercial fishing nets. The class plays a game using popcorn and crackers, each child will attempt to catch the...

How many rainforests are there, where are they, and do global factors effect their locations? These are great questions that have great answers. Children in grades four through eight use several different maps to determine why...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you can add art to any lesson! While little learners are discovering why fish have specific body parts such as, scales, fins, and gills, they start making three-dimensional fish forms. Children...

How many of your students know that even today new species are being found all over the globe? Introduce them to the amazing diversity our planet houses with a creative activity about animal variation and classification. They'll use a...

Family fun days are great for connecting home and school life, building strong parent/teacher relationships, and engaging students in a fun and social way. Here are several activity ideas to help you and your class run your own Family...

To celebrate diversity and the purpose of Harmony Day, the class examines culturally diverse music and expression through line drawing. They discuss that all cultures produce music and that music can convey mood just like art can. As the...

Rays and angles and Star Wars? It sounds strange, but it's actually a fun game to help fourth graders get good at measuring and identifying angles and rays with a protractor. Each pair of children chooses which Star Wars character they'd...

Understanding arrays is very similar to understanding the relationship between multiplication and area. Give your third graders an opportunity to practice identifying area models that relate repeated addition and multiplication. They...

Here is a 19-page sample lesson that uses an interesting format. It starts with an appetizer or activity to make reading the book James and the Giant Peach fun. Then it dives into the main course or core content instruction which...

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book is a childhood classic that readers of all ages enjoy. A teaching packet that includes instruction tips, comprehension strategies, background information on the book and author, and two fun worksheets.

Here is a very fun idea that introduces young learners to how geographical location affects cultural development. They are introduced to four areas where Native Americans have lived in the past by reading stories and examining images....