What a wonderful way to meld art and culture! Learners create art work in the Suminagashi style using this detailed lesson plan. This art form, which is Japanese in origin, employs ink to create beautiful results. This will be a hit with...

Chinese and Japanese calligraphy is beautiful and significant in both culture and tradition. Engage your class in this expressive fine art form through a lesson on using, holding, and creating brush strokes common to Japanese writing...

A series of four lessons on the places, people, and landscape of Canada. These excellent lessons should provide your charges with an increased understanding of the history and culture of Canada - the largest country in North America....

Introduce young explorers to the music and history of Jamaican culture through game songs and dances. As a bonus, class members get to play simple songs transcribed for the recorder.

Learn two dances that your class can perform at a Cinco De Mayo school celebration. This is really an outline and would be better used if there were plans for how to teach the dance steps. The idea is good to teach the cultural...

Peek into the art and history of ancient Mexico by analyzing the artifact Stone Serpent Heads. Learners examine images of the piece, discuss its origin, history, and significance. They experience the carving process by creating similar...

Africans transported to the Caribbean as part of the transatlantic slave trade brought with them a rich tradition of music and dance. Four lessons teach young musicians the rumba clave rhythm, cascara rhythm, and the 6/8 bell patterns...

Combine a study of Native American history and art in this lesson plan. Learners discuss the importance of fetishes in Native American culture, the history of necklaces, and create their own works of art. Your class will find this to be...

While an interesting lesson idea involving the exploration of a story about an Asian American boy named Imduk, a teacher would need to have assess to the Scott Foresman reading program to make this work. If not, a teacher could use...

Here's a mobile assignment that will brighten up your classroom. Each group is assigned one color from the color wheel, paints the pure color, three tints, and three shades of that color on precut forms the group designs, and hangs the...

Learners work in small groups to investigate a variety of art and architecture forms common during the Old Kingdom epoch in Ancient Egypt. Learners then evaluate how these art forms reflect a culture's beliefs and values. And, finally,...

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

Go ahead. Spill the ink! Combine the study of art, social studies, and science with a Suminagashi (spilled ink) activity that produces "unique and unreproducible" works of art.

Here is a fabulous lesson about the cultures of the Northwest Indians. Through an exploration of a story about the Salmon People, learners study the practice of harvesting salmon and the cultural importance of salmon to the Northwest...

Here is an art lesson plan that combines visual arts and language arts into one very nice package. In it, youngsters study a fascinating painting called Painting of Bear and Sun Dances. They begin to understand the importance of...

Discover stories about women's history in beautiful stained glass windows. The second in a three-part series teaches scholars about a famous artistic style of stained glass windows and the influential women that used art to impact...

Make origami ducks with your class to reinforce geometry concepts and vocabulary; develop fine motor and visual translation skills; and enrich study of Japanese culture, the pond habitat, or migration. Create a whole group "worksheet"...

Middle schoolers are encourage to try their hand at traditional Oceania tapa art by crafting their own cloth using brown paper bags. Included in the resource is background information about the cultures of Oceania and their art. 

Inspire first grade artists to learn about abstract and realistic art while reading Eric Carle's Where are you Going? To See My Friend. Young artists design and make a mural collage by tearing shapes of paper while comparing English and...

Bring the sounds of the deep South vocal blues to the classroom with a Smithsonian Folkways lesson plan. In preparation, scholars listen to and count the 12 bar blues patterns in several works and identify the I, II, IV, and V chords as...

There isn't a lot to this lesson, but it could provide some guidance. It outlines a five-day drawing lesson where learners view a presentation on the importance of drawing in art history, practice pencil skills, and compose a black and...

After a teacher-led demonstration on the lives and music of Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington, learners write a letter to them which shows their understanding of how a person's life experiences can be reflected in a composer's music. They...

An ambitious geography lesson is geared toward kindergartners. They discover what the differences are between states and countries. They look at maps of Arkansas, and learn what the shapes and lines mean. Additionally, they create a...

Culture and art are two things that change with time and context. Learners compare and contrast two landscape prints from different time periods. They work through art terminology to help them describe what they see in each piece. The...