Curated OER
Telling Stories: Symbols of a Life
Art and literature can go hand in hand, they both are used to express elements of the self in a creative and interesting way. Budding story tellers interpret and analyze the narrative elements they find in a work of art. They focus on...
Curated OER
Telling Stories in Art: Symbols of a Life
Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...
National Gallery of Canada
Reading Symbols
Introduce your upper-elementary students to printmaking. Class members view prints, select and research symbols in a piece, and create their own sets of prints using styrofoam trays. Pupils can wash off the paint on their trays to make...
Curated OER
Artists Teach Us to See the World through Visual Symbols
Tenth graders analyze a biographical piece of art by Raymond Saunders. They identify shapes, symbols, and lines that are used, and how the piece relates to the artist's life and modern society. They design and create an original piece of...
Simon & Schuster
Classroom Activities for The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
A 15-page packet includes detailed plans for three activities related to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. To gather background information, class members research topics and create a newspaper page reporting their findings. After finishing...
Curated OER
Silent Symbols Speak Loudly: Icons, Brands & You
Students view and discuss visual symbols around them every day, analyze symbols on United States one dollar bill, explore variety of meanings of same symbols depending on context and culture, and create their own money with symbols that...
Olympic Museum
The Olympic Symbols
Get into the Olympic spirit with a resource about the values and symbols of the Olympic Games. With sections about prominent images of the Olympics, including the flame and the interlocked rings, the packet supplies engaging information...
Curated OER
Political Cartoons: Introduction to Symbols
Learners make a list of every day symbols they know of and write down what each symbol stands for. Then they are asked to help their knowledge further by considering all the meanings various symbols might have.
Curated OER
Creating a Personal Symbol
Students inquire about visual arts by creating an artistic etching. For this symbolism lesson, students identify the work of Keith Haring by researching the web and analyzing images. Students utilize linoleum or wood to create an etching...
Curated OER
Hazardous Products Substitutes
Third graders write a hazardous products substitutes recipe book. In this Science lesson plan, 3rd graders identify words and symbols that indicate hazardous substances. Students investigate safe substitutes and write a recipe book to...
Curated OER
Flower Symbolism
Fourth graders identify flowers as symbols in art forms. They focus on the Victorian era and create their own flower design for use in visual art or literary forms.
Curated OER
Collage and Photomontage
Tenth graders discuss collage and photomontage techniques and artists, and how the art form can convey cultural or current issues. They research a collage artist, then design a topical or personally symbolic collage. Present their...
Curated OER
All Americana
Fifth graders research American landmarks and symbols. In this United States history lesson, 5th graders create a KWL chart about the symbols of America and take notes during a PowerPoint presentation. Students complete the rest of the...
Denver Art Museum
Communicating with Symbols
Before kids analyze a Chinese dish filled with amazing images, they research the meanings of various plant and animal symbols. They use their research to decode the meaning of the expressive artwork on the dish and then use symbolism to...
Curated OER
Symbols of a Life
Pupils identify the narrative elements in a work of art and write their own narrative. In this narrative and symbolism lesson, students interpret narratives depicted in the given works of art and write a biographical narrative about a...
Curated OER
Symbols of Culture
Learners discover artistic symbols from cultures around the world. In this cultural murals lesson, students observe different murals on-line, and select two to write about on their student blog. The learners investigate the murals and...
Curated OER
Art Lesson: My Symbol
Students explore and brainstorm the concept of symbols in real world applications and create a poem describing themselves. They design and paint a symbol that represents him/herself utilizing the technique of simplification to express...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Shaping Ideas: Symbolism in Sculpture—Lesson 2
Young artists create a series of sketches of ideas for a sculpture, and using the criteria develop in the previous class, critique their sketches. They then choose one of their ideas and create their work of art.
Curated OER
Symbols of America
Third graders choose an American symbol and write a poem about it. In this American symbols lesson plan, 3rd graders view and discuss the purpose of some American symbols and then write at least 5 lines in a poem about it.
Curated OER
Personal Peace Symbols
Eleventh graders produce a work of art that symbolizes peace and their experiences with it. In this peace symbolism lesson, 11th graders sketch symbols associated with peace view art examples of peace images. Students complete a...
Curated OER
Power of Symbols in West African Art
Students examine and analyze symbols used in the Asante community of Ghana and look at the history of power struggles in West Africa. They discover how to express meaning and power as they create their own symbols and short stories...
Curated OER
Artistic Symbols
Students compare and contrast symbols used in African and Plains Indian art. In this visual arts lesson, students compare symbols of 2 cultural groups found in their art. Students write a description of what items might have been left...
Curated OER
Symbols and Signs
Students investigate the significance of various signs and symbols. They view and discuss the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of U.S. liberty, listen to the book "The Story of the Statue of Liberty," and create a class book of signs and...
MDE k-12
Lesson 5: The Journey Becomes Larger Than Life!
Many muralists throughout history have focused on using their art to represent aspects of their culture or community. After thoroughly researching several muralists, budding artists will create a larger than life mural that contains...