To prepare for a field trip to a local art museum, art class members journal their initial reactions to a reproduction of the work they will focus on during their visit. The whole class then considers the artistic elements in the piece...

Kids get artistic as they explore the impact of art materials, sculpture, and performance. They discuss the work of Janine Antoni and then create a performance piece that reflects social or global issues they feel strongly about. The end...

Young analysts write a comparative essay, but about what? They compose a paper based on several critical discussion about reality and illusion, and how both are blurred in art. They analyze several theatre pieces that exemplify Brechtian...

The attitudes of European settlers toward the American wilderness, as reflected in art and literature, is the focus of this resource packet designed for teachers. Included in the unit overview you will find lists or paintings and...

Class members are presented with the image of a painting and asked to record their first impressions and analysis. They then research the time period in which it was painted and discuss how their research impacted their first impression...

After examining and discussing Guy Ben-Ner's Treehouse Kit, a contemporary art installation with a sculptural and video element, small groups work together to create short silent films. The films should be built around a particular topic...

“All the world’s a stage…” What do Leonardo DiCaprio, Heath Ledger, and Kenneth Branagh have in common? They have all starred in modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. After viewing a series clips from modern Shakespeare videos,...

Learners plan an art show. They do everything from creating the invitations, to selecting the pieces of art, to deciding how they will be displayed. This is a rather ambitious project for 1st graders to take on, so a lot of parental...

This may be a lot to ask of a high schooler, but then again, who knows? Pupils work in groups to explore, write, and then perform an original opera. They view versions of The Magic Flute and La Traviata, then compose a plot, characters,...

Build visual literacy, discussion, and critical thinking skills with an innovative art activity. Young analysts discuss the use of decalcomania, surrealism, and automatism in various contemporary pieces, discuss constructed truth, and...

Kids consider the pure abstraction and minimalism found in Mary Heilmann's work. They analyze several of her pieces through critical discussion and then think about her use of a song title as the title of her exhibit. Learners then use a...

This is a big project, but lucky for you, the materials, steps, and additional notes are at-the-ready to make it a classroom possibility. Your class will sculpt a life-sized artist using steel brackets, plywood, chicken wire, and...

It's time to put down those pencils and celebrate! Scholars share the visual representations of their position papers with the class. They participate in a gallery walk to view each other's work, writing a piece of praise for their...

Examine two works of art and use these pieces as inspiration for dialogues. The whole class discusses Renoir's Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise and Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge. Then, in groups of either three or ten, pupils...

What's the most popular music style in Brazil? What about Cuba? Or the Dominican Republic? An immersive project teaches young learners about the salsa, the samba, and the merengue with research assignments and dance performances.

Do you ever think about what it takes for an artist to create a larger-than-life sculpture? Kids examine the piece, Scottish Angus Cow and Calf as it relates to scale, scale conversion, and artistic craft. They then use scale conversions...

Ambition is the keyword of a lesson that focuses on the contributions made by famous female artists. Specifically looking at European artists, Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, scholars examine a piece of their work then...

First the class analyzes the painting, Rodeo-Pickup Man by Frank Mechau, then they get to work. They explore the painting through verbal descriptions, focusing on vivid language to describe detail. They then compose a written piece using...

Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...

A poem carved on Angel Island's walls is the guiding text of a instructional activity that challenges scholars to put movement into a written piece of art. After warm up-activities, learners play a game of "Pass the Clap" and "Pass the...

The school band or orchestra analyzes their own performance after exploring musical terminology. They listen to a classical piece and describe it using only words. They look up musical terminology and then use those words to compare and...

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

High school artists create a collaborative piece based on a historical image. Each member of the class is given two days to draw one part of the whole image, when the two days are up; they put their pieces together and discuss the...

The cut-up technique invented by surrealist artist Tristan Tzara is the focus for today. Young artists examine the technique and analyze its use in relation to expressing and viewing the world. They then use a newspaper to create a...