Curated OER
Rotational Hex Designs
Learn about the Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, Rotational Hex Design. This image-rich presentation provides a comprehensive description of the origin and meaning behind these interesting totems. Instructions to create these symmetrical...
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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...
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How to Make a Mummy Mask
With some plaster casting materials and a quick lesson on the ancient burial traditions of Egypt, your class can create amazing mummy masks. Listed here are all the tools, precautions, and steps needed for each child to make an Egyptian...
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City Streets: A Fold-up of a Street Lined with Buildings
After walking in a nearby neighborhood, have your class create this amazing city street pop-up. They study the facades of the buildings they see, focusing on geometric line, shape, and architecture. They then draw, cut, and create a city...
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Pocket Full of Posies: Ceramics
After studying the plant or flower life cycle, have the class create a basket of flowers out of clay. They hone their ceramics skills while they push, pull, then paint clay to look like flowers they've seen in nature. There are several...
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Accordion Fold Book
You can use these basic instructions to create a book using the accordion fold. This project can be used alongside nearly any other lesson. Have kids fold a book to create a science journal, chapter-by-chapter book summary, to house a...
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Museum Practice for Students
Before any of us can learn to enjoy a trip to an art museum, we need to learn how to behave. This list of activities describe the behavior expected on a trip to an art museum. Each behavior comes with an activity intended to demonstrate...
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Pen and Ink Drawing
Learners hone their drawing techniques to create a nature-inspired piece of art. They practice hatching, cross hatching, stippling, and shading. They discuss how each method is better suited for creating specific elements in nature such...
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Lascaux Cave Art on Ceramic Stones
Here is a great way to incorporate art into your next unit on prehistoric people. The class makes stones out of ceramic clay and then creates paintings like those found in the Lascaux Caves in France. A video link, full day-by-day...
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Classic Still Life Drawing
Provide your young artists with an opportunity to study the masters and their techniques to become skilled at drawing still life. They discuss and view images from artists like Degas and Michelangelo, practice drawing techniques such as...
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Soft Sculpture Birds
Art can mimic life, and animals are always interesting subjects. Learners create large soft sculptures (stuffed) birds using paper, paint, and other basic collage materials. They view images of birds, and discuss bird traits and shapes....
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Plaster Face Mask
The process may be difficult, but the end product will be worth it. Kids will love creating these plaster masks made from their own faces. If they can sit still long enough, they can become the model for their own masks. All the steps,...
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April Showers Raindrop Painting
I love this idea! After discussing rain, spring, and the weather, take your class outside and let nature do the painting. They shake power paints and glitter onto a piece of heavy construction paper, then take their paper outside and...
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Old Fisherman
Sculpting is a lot of fun and it stimulates multiple senses at once. Learners observe and then create a fisherman (or any person) out of paper clay. They mold and sculpt their clay until they have shaped a person. They then paint and...
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Clay Sand Castles
You can start off this sand castle art project by previewing the included architectural vocabulary. Learners explore images, the web, and books that show both sand castles and architectural design. They then get creative and make their...
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Fall Reflections Monoprints
Create a natural autumn scene using the monoprinting method. Class members work on creating an image with reflection, foreground, and background using one line.
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Non-Edible Recipes (art recipes)
Oh your eyes are going to pop when they see this long list of are recipes! Each of the 29 links redirect you to an art supply recipe that will help you make a number of art supplies. Doughs, paints, clay, glue, paste, and chalk are a...
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Coil Pots
Children learn by doing. Here, they discuss cultural uses of containers, coil and slab techniques, functional aesthetics, and the principles of art and design. The entire process for making a coil pot is fully described here to make the...
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Winter Wonderland Painting
The examples of art at the top of this page speak for themselves. Here is a fun and lovely project that gets kids outside to observe how snow falls on trees and how various trees are structured. They use crayons, tempera paint, and...
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Cotton Swab Skeletons
To truly teach through the arts means one must tackle both art and core content in one lesson plan. This quick activity does just that. Learners make skeletons out of cotton swabs in order to study relief sculpture and the skeletal...
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Crystal Ice Art
This isn't just an art lesson, it's a science lesson too. Kids draw a lovely winter scene and then paint over it with a solution of epsom salts and water. They make predictions, then observe how crystals form as the water evaporates...
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Camel Container: Ceramics
Play with clay while building finger dexterity and important sculpting techniques. Learners make camel containers while they practice throwing and molding clay. Fun camel facts make this an interdisciplinary art lesson.
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Interpreting Photographs: Part One
Photography is a wonderful artistic medium used to express feelings, historical events, and nature. This worksheet provides three critical-analysis questions that require learners to take an in-depth look a photograph both physically and...
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Clay Assessment Sheet
After your art class has completed a clay project, they can fill out this self-assessment to build their art-analysis and self-reflective skills. There are eight questions on two pages to help you grade your learners.