Curated OER
Twig Picture Frame
Students create a twig picture frame. In this visual arts lesson, students use cardboard, twigs, and glue to construct a twig photo frame. Students add flowers or nuts as a decoration.
Curated OER
Pencil Holder
Young scholars construct a pencil holder. In this visual arts lesson, students create a pencil holder from a soup can, glue, and spray paint. Young scholars decorate the pencil can with decorations. They can use this pencil holder as a...
Curated OER
Digital Portfolio
In need of a good way to asses the work your art class has been working on all quarter? This quick-and-easy idea has young artists take digital photographs of each of their art pieces in order to create a digital portfolio. This is a...
Curated OER
Image Transfer and Printmaking With Clay and Under Glazes
What a creative lesson! Learners make sushi dishes using printmaking methods. They use a variety of techniques including those involving under glazes and clay. There are instructions and pictures to make this process easy for both the...
Sew News
Otis the Owl Pattern
Use this owl pattern for a paper craft or with fabric. Each part of the template is labeled clearly, and the big parts make this easy for young elementary schoolers to complete. Cutting, however, will be difficult for kids under 2nd grade.
Curated OER
Painted Balsa-Foam Butterfly
Students research a butterfly and create butterfly art. In this visual arts lesson, students choose a specific butterfly to research and create a Balsa-Foam butterfly of the same species. Students use Balsa-Foam, modeling tools, and...
Curated OER
Open Your Eyes To Art!
Students help create a colorful bulletin board for classroom art displays in this short activity for the early elementary classroom. The activity, which can use a variety of items, includes product ideas and resource links to find very...
Curated OER
African Ceramic Mask Making
Students investigate a variety of African mask types, design several masks, and create an example of an African ceramic mask in this 5th grade through High School Art lesson plan. The lesson plan can take anywhere from 6 lessons to 16...
Curated OER
Glue Fish
Get out the glue and those oil pastels its time for an art project. The class explores shape, art, and color as they draw fish with glue, let them dry, and then color them as they wish. This project would be wonderful after discussing...
Curated OER
Shoe Fish
Fishy, fishy, fishy, fish! Kids take off their shoes and trace them to create fish for a large aquarium art project. Each traced shoe shape is decorated with gills, fins, scales, and eyes, then hug on an aquarium background. Three book...
Curated OER
Have It Your Way Sandwich Collage
You want to make a sandwich out of fabric and paper? If so, this art project provides the instructions needed. Learners will use a variety of fabrics and paper to construct a sandwich through collage. Tip: Have leaners describe the...
Curated OER
Clay Gargoyles and Grotesques
Grotesques or gargoyles are wonderful subjects for stories or art projects. Here is a simple "how to" for creating a activity about sculpting clay gargoyles. Tip: Have learners research gargoyles throughout history.
Curated OER
Winter Crayon Resists
In need of a quick art project to chase away those winter blues? In just six steps you'll know how to instruct learners on creating winter scenes using crayon resist.
Curated OER
Fill a Jar
Sometimes short lesson outlines are enough to give you a great idea. Young writers draw any object inside an image of a jar, that doesn't belong in a jar. They can draw a tree, truck, or dinosaur. Tip: Have kids write a short story...
Curated OER
Draw What You Feel in the Bag: Art Game
Here is a great game to play on a rainy day or as a warm up. Kids feel an object in a paper bag, they do not attempt to identify it, they simply draw what they feel. This results in a contour drawing based on line, feeling, and texture....
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
Curated OER
Molded Clay Faces
Artists create clay masks using pre-formed molds, clay, glitter, feathers, gems, and paint. The expressive qualities of clay are perfect for creating many different types of face masks, from Mardi Gras glitter to Japanese Kabuki to...
Curated OER
Sarcophagus
Here is another in a series of fantastic art lessons from this source. This one has young artists create a sarcophagus-style clay box! This lesson would be ideal to utilzie during a study of the ancient Egyptians. One note of caution:...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Ball Point Engravings
Turn simple pencil sketches into colorful engravings. After first creating hand-drawn pictures, young artists then trace over them will ball point pens, etching the images into cold press illustration boards, before rubbing crayons over...
Curated OER
Turkey Centerpieces
Students create "turkey centerpieces" in this easy elementary art lesson plan using apples, toothpicks, construction paper, and gumdrops. The lesson plan includes a materials list and a step-by-step list of instructions to create the...
Curated OER
Draw Like an Egyptian
Students craft their own Egyptian art. In this ancient Egyptian art lesson, students explore Egyptian art and create their own work following the 4 guidelines presented in the lesson.
Curated OER
Easy Printmaking in the Classroom
Students use styrofoam and cardboard to create prints. Students choose a theme and create designs and pictures on styrofoam and cardboard. Students also use construction paper, cardboard cylinder sections to make their art.
Curated OER
Artful Boomerangs
Middle schoolers create and decorate a boomerang. In this boomerang lesson, students research the history of the boomerang and the three different types. They create their own boomerang and decorate it with a collage of pictures.