Facing History and Ourselves
What Aspects of Our Identities Do We Show to Others?
Sixth graders consider how they present their personal identities. For this character education lesson plan, 6th graders define themselves as they create masks that represent their personalities. Students share their masks and discuss...
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American Indian Art
Students complete a unit of study about Native American visual art. In this visual art lesson, students complete five lessons to study Native American art.
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Impact on Your Essence
Students are introduced to the use of symbolism and how it can change one's view of a piece of art. Using a piece of art, they view it as if they were the artist and create a symbol that accompanies it. They discuss the impact of two-...
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Food and Languages of the World
Pupils engage in creative bead making while discussing Africa. In this diversity and arts lesson, students create African necklaces while being introduced to the African culture.
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Art Through the Eyes of Youth
Students take a field trip to an art gallery reflecting on the paintings they like the most. Individually, they use magazines to find pictures related to their personality. In pairs, they make a mask to represent their ethnic group and...
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Halloween
Discover the origins and traditions of Halloween with a crafty lesson plan! Second graders create bats, monsters, witches, and ghosts with masks and puppets. Next, they share their work with their classmates in a fun celebration.
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Central And South America And Their Ancient Civilizations
Fifth graders listen to lectures on the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. They construct a mask base and then decorate it in thirds with symbols meaningful to each of the three cultures being studied.
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Conversing with an Object
Students analyze museum artifacts and create conversations between these inanimate objects using prior historical knowledge. In this museum artifact lesson, students create theoretical dialogue between historical artifacts in order to...
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Copper Tooling
Students examine different examples of Mycenaean masks. They discuss the history of the masks and why they might have been made. They give their opinions and their responses are recorded.
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Art of the Inca
Learners examine the early civilizations of Central and South America. After examining hand-crafted objects, they discuss the craftsmanship of the Inca and how they used geometric shapes and symbols in their art. They draft a design...
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Sgraffito With Clay and Underglazes
Learners create a ceramicpiece by using the sgraffito technique. In this ceramics lesson, students use clay to create a shape of a mask. Learners add an underglaze to the mask and applies the sgraffito technique to create designs.
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Using West African Gold Weights and African Masks as a Way of Communication
Eighth graders discuss how communication, or lack thereof, can have either a favorable or detrimental effect on a community. They study and interpret proverbs as a means of teaching a activity. Finally they discuss symbolism and design...
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Dialect Awareness in Literature and Life
Eighth graders realize the impact of dialect in literature as well as their own speaking and writing by reading selections from Frances O'Roark Dowell's novel, Dovey Cove.
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Create a Cat with Amaco Scuptamold and Wireform Metal Mesh
Learners create an animal from Sculptamold and metal mesh. In this hands-on arts lesson, students use the materials provided the create a piece of art in the form of an animal. This lesson includes easy step-by-step directions.
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Artist Unknown
Students examine how Lennie Gardner's process of discovery about his bronze mask parallels a personal discovery process. They receive an introduction to the art, history, and religion of Benin
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Equality: Children's Rights
Students and parents participate in a variety of activities designed to help them explore the similarities and differences of people. They design and wear masks, sort attribute blocks, read stories, discuss the rights and...
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Chinese New Year
Students identify and present the history and legend of the Chinese New Year and respond to questions included. Students practice saying the common greetings and wishes in Chinese for the Chinese New Year. Students identify and explain...
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Exploring Race Through Literature
Provide your class with an opportunity to examine race through a variety of literary works. They read and analyze a chosen poem, interview, speech, or story describing race in America. They then use key words from the original work to...
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Archaic Greece
Walk your students through archaic Greek times with this 60-slide PowerPoint. The presentation is separated into 6 different eras, including: Early "Bronze Age," The Minoans, The Mycenaeans, The Trojan War, The Greek "Dark Ages," and...
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Archaic Greece
What could be so interesting about archaic Greece? What isn't! Kids will get a chance to see some of the amazing artifacts unearthed by explorers of old. As the slides progress, so does the ancient timeline. From the Early Bronze Age and...
American Museum of Natural History
Dress Up a Horse
Walk, trot, gallop! Young equestrians have an opportunity to learn all about horses with an engaging resource that lets them select tack to dress up a horse, create flip books that illustrate the various gates, have questions answered by...
Portland Public Schools
Narrative Writing: Personal Narrative
Whether you need to supplement your narrative writing unit or you'd like to start from scratch, a thorough unit plan can be a helpful way to guide learners through personal narratives. The plan has complete learning goals and...
American Museum of Natural History
Mythic Creatures Challenge
Mythic creatures and where to find them is the subject of an engaging interactive resource. Young anthropologists click on a bright red X on a world map to see an image of and learn the stories of 15 legendary creatures.
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Expressions - Activity 1
Young scholars create wax sculptures of a full body using mathematical calculations and information gathered from a video in this excellent art project. The lesson can be used along or within the unit provided.