Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Illustrating Text
Ideas like this are highly effective for helping build better reading comprehension. The class listens to an excerpt from a grade-appropriate text, and they discuss what clues or words helped them visualize the scene. They then read a...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Kapa Designs
I always knew there was a connection between art and math, and this lesson proves it. Fifth graders will use what they know about ratios and percents to design art inspired by Polynesian kapa cloth. A grid, specific guidelines, and the...
Curated OER
How Do Artists Effectively Relate Historic Events?
Students explore African American migration. In this black culture and history lesson, students use a map to identify northern and southern states in which African Americans lived in the 1900s. Students observe and describe objects and...
Curated OER
Understanding Symmetry Through Visual Art
Have your class explore symmetry, radial balance and fractional parts in natural and man-made objects in their environment. Learners list examples and identify symmetrical and asymmetrical designs. Pupils are given a box of crayons and...
Creative Visions Foundation
Studying Documentaries Like a Writer - Looking For Persuasive Techniques
Revisit the documentaries viewed in the previous lesson in this series in order to take a look at the persuasive techniques employed by the documentary creators. Small groups watch the films a second time, taking notes on two provided...
Curated OER
An Introduction to the Relationship Between Composition and Content in the Visual Arts
Students investigate how artists create a story that provides a message or provokes emotions in a single image. The ways in which the composition of a painting contributes to telling the story or conveying the message is examined in this...
Curated OER
Stained Glass Art - Activity 1
Students examine stained glass art techniques in this introductory lesson provided by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The unit emphasizes student created representations of stained glass art.
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
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,...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Historical Context: Discovering a Painting
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...
Curated OER
Lesson: Elizabeth Peyton: The Self in the Other's Image: Portraiture and Identity
Art, identity, and an imaginary community, three components that should make for an interesting activity. Critical thinkers explore and evaluate the work of contemporary artist, Elizabeth Peyton. They discuss her use of subject and art...
Smithsonian Institution
Mary Henry: Journal/Diary Writing
A great way to connect social studies with language arts, a resource on Mary Henry's historical diary reinforces the concepts of primary and secondary sources. It comes with an easy-to-understand lesson plan, as well as the reference...
Curated OER
Mosaics
Sixth graders discuss and identify shapes, spaces, colors, patterns, or tesserae in mosaics and compare them to cultural symbols of the Roman Empire. They design and create mosaics using paper.
Curated OER
Politics and Religion in 17th Century Dutch Art
Seventh graders examine different pieces of Dutch Art. They identify its social and political meanings by using cultural and historical information. They examine maps of the time period as well.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Clay Creatures
When little ones make things out of clay they're not just exercising their creativity, they are following directions, developing fine motor skills, and building a sense of pride in their work. First graders use the pinch-and-score...
Walters Art Museum
The Symbolism of Allegorical Art
Introduce learners to allegorical art with four bronze sculptures by Francesco Bertos. After modeling how to recognize bias and allegory in Bertos' Africa, class groups examine the other three sculptures in the series before creating...
Curated OER
My Life in Numbers
Have fun while your class creates a timeline of their lives. They record events before and after they were born on a line with 10 integer pairs consisting of one integer on each side of zero. Many extension activities can be done in...
Curated OER
Cartoon Vocabulary
Third and fourth graders complete a vocabulary log which includes a definition, and a sentence that demonstrates the meaning of the word. Then make an illustration that represents the definition of the word. The trick is that they may...
Curated OER
Flying in Unusual Places
Eighth graders create a surrealistic composition that depicts flight.
Curated OER
Flying Too Close to the Sun
Students research the myth of Icarus and his father and discuss the associated metaphor. They view the work of a number of artists and create a painting depicting the myth.
Curated OER
Step Into the Past: Change and Growth in Arkansas
The concept of change over time is presented in this history lesson. In it, learners discuss how some things stay the same over time, while other things change. Teams of students research and create a timeline of important events that...
Curated OER
Give It All You’ve Got Heroes and Visual Art
Sure, your young artists probably know Van Gogh and Picasso, but are they equally as familiar with Frida Kahlo and Andy Warhol? Small groups examine the work of famous artists. Then, they create their own hero portraits in Cubist style...
Curated OER
Study in Line Direction
Students study line direction in art. In this art lesson plan on lines, students look at art that portrays lines being used in different ways. They will use what they have learned about lines to create a final composition depicting...