Curated OER
Natural Disasters: Stormy Weather in Art, Writing, and Music
Using personal experience, visual art, and music that evoke natural disasters, your older high schoolers create their own expressions of storms. Learners conduct online research about weather drama. They make their own expressive...
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Character Building from Inside Out
Students relate the facial muscle location with a person's expressions. For this visual arts lesson, students write a fictional story about a character. They use digital cameras and computer softwares to create an animation film about it.
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Comparing Cultural Holidays
Third graders explore art that reflects their cultural background. In this writing and research lesson plan students compare and contrast the Halloween with El Dia de los Muertos. Students study the visual art of these holidays. Then...
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Dali & Desnos
Students explore surreal art and poetry. In this visual arts lesson, students examine works by André Breton, Robert Desnos, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miro. Students then apply the techniques in the works they analyze to their own poetry.
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Free Form Sculpture
Tenth graders explore abstract and non-representational art forms through research and artistic expression. They research a free form artist, their work, and abstract sculpture. They then work with pantyhose, chicken wire, plaster, and...
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Palace Adventure
Young language arts learners write and illustrate a short fantasy story based on the book Corduroy. First, learners need to develop a character. Then, through their writing and illustrations, they take their characters on adventures...
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Texture Hunts and More: Madonna and Child with Saints
Students investigate different painting techniques by studying classic works of art. In this art history activity, students observe the famous Madonna and Child with Saints painting and describe the texture and images they notice....
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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...
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Pastel Scratch Portrait
A great cross-curricular project for any art classroom, this activity encourages young artists to consider color, pattern, texture, shape and line in their depiction of a historical figure. After researching a historical figure of their...
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Visual Arts Lesson: St. James on Horseback
Sixth graders research and write on sculpture of St. James and describe his importance to the Spanish soldiers who conquered Mexico; students create their own estofado designs.
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Exploring Pottery Techniques
Students examine Native American pottery. In this visual arts lesson, students analyze burnished and glazed clay pots. Students study how to create pots from online sources and respond to questions about the process. Extension activities...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Exhibiting Common Threads
Artists working in different media often explore the same themes—to model how these same themes weave their way through different forms of artistic expression, scholars analyze images by Dorothea Lange, identifying key themes in her...
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Abstract Planes in Paper Sculpture
High schoolers create maquettes of abstract sculptures utilizing the elements of art; line, shape, value, color, space and texture and the principles of design; balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm and movement, pattern and unity. These...
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Lesson: Elizabeth Peyton: Pictures of Royalty: The Imagined
Elizabeth Peyton is an artist who creates images of people (often famous) that she doesn't personally know. These images become part of her imagined community. Learners analyze her work, her community of imagined friends, and then create...
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Chinese Landscape Painting
Third graders learn about Chinese poetry and landscape paintings, then create their own. They view several examples and discuss the elements of each, then paint their own landscape inspired by what they saw. They then listen to, read,...
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Dance: Discovering the Culture of Gullah
It's wonderful to see a lesson that incorporates art, movement, and writing. These three forms of creative expression are explored as learners dance to music from the Gullah people of West Africa. They analyze several paintings, listen...
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Lesson: Text Messages
Can a neon sign be considered art? Kids consider two different works that use neon text as the basis for conveying artistic social messages. They then analyze a truism from Jenny Holzer's web site that holds meaning to them personally....
Media Smarts
Marketing to Teens: Gender Roles in Advertising
Young learners explore gender roles in advertising by taking an ad campaign they have seen which is specifically directed to one gender, and redesigning the campaign to target the opposite gender. After leading a guided discussion about...
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Japan: Traditions and Culture
A series of four activities explores Japanese culture and traditions. Learners participate in a re-enacted tea ceremony; examine sketches of Asian figures by Canadian artist Robert Harris, discuss symbols, investigate Japanese mon, and...
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Habitat Art: Florida Panthers
Students discover the lifestyles of a Florida Panther by investigating its habitat. In this wild animal lesson, students utilize the Internet to research the habits of a Panther and what their habitat is. Students create an artful...
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Performance Art and The Waste Stream
Students research local waste management services, discuss findings, give opinions about what they have found, offer solutions and ideas, and create performance art, design art works, and fine art works to convey information on waste...
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3D Paper-Edge Figure Sculptures
Young scholars discover visual arts by creating sculptures in class. In this personal expression lesson plan, students research the Internet and examine different examples of modern sculptures and 3 dimensional art. Young scholars...
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Lesson: Beyond First Impressions
Just like the colors and techniques used to create a vivid image, learners will use exceptional language to create vivid stories. They examine the techniques used to tell a visual story in the painting, Road to Santa Fe. They then use...
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The Art and Science of Impressionist Color
Discover Impressionist painting as young scholars investigate the 19th century combinations of colors characteristically used. Students experiment with their own paintings, utilizing primary and secondary colors.