"A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come."  The withered and wild witches of Shakespeare’s Scottish play launch an examination of the fantastical elements in Act I, scene iii, paying particular attention to the action, imagery,...

What are your pupils' homes like? Incorporate their homes into a drawing lesson. Using an enlarged photograph, class members draw a grid so they can easily split their drawing in half. The final product should demonstrate cool colors,...

Play with dimensions and practice making a two-dimensional scene look three-dimensional. Class members view pieces of art and then make their own scenes by layering different materials and drawing in details. Check out all the tabs for...

Create colorful cool or warm butterflies with simple materials. Class members draw their designs, spray the marker to diffuse the colors, and attach pipe cleaners to form the shape of a butterfly with antennae. Individuals must be able...

Select a theme together to guide and inspire works of art. Class members view images of art and discuss the images of cities. After choosing a theme, individuals create posters that reflect and contribute to the theme. They can use paint...

M.C. Escher is famous for creating optical illusions. Examine this effect in several of his works and discuss the techniques involved. Inspired by the discussion, learners create an imaginary 3-D world inside of a box using various...

Introduce your class to Inuit prints and use these artworks as inspiration for a printmaking activity. Pupils make stories to go along with the images and then come up with their own heroic moments to illustrate. They take moments from...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...

Explore heritage and identity through an examination of art and a related project. The featured art, related to the African diaspora, includes several types of art created by different artists. Pupils consider their own backgrounds and...

Tap into the information included in this in-depth analysis of Running Out of Time when planning your unit. The document includes a plot summary, analysis of the literary elements in the novel, implications for various student groups,...

Track the poetic elements in any text with a guided reading worksheet. Kids note examples of consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm when reading a poem or story, and provide a short explanation as...

A solid, straightforward book report form is an excellent addition to your literature unit. Class members note the main characters, point of view, plot elements, and other important details from a story, adding their favorite part...

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and has its own atmosphere. An attention-grabbing tutorial allows learners to analyze the spectrum of Saturn and Titan to determine their elemental compositions. Scholars compare a known element's spectrum...

Cookies and chemical equations have a lot in common! Using cookies as a reference, scholars learn to balance chemical equations. Pieces of the cookies represent different parts of the compounds and elements. This is the sixth installment...

No matter how you shuffle the elements, their electron configurations keep them in the same order. How can that be? Introduce the concept of periodicity through a instructional activity that combines inquiry, discussion, and comparison....

Explication may sound like a fancy word, but it's just a fancy way to say analysis. Using a handout on poetry explications, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers learn how to break down and analyze a poem. The...

Four stories by Kate Chopin offer high schoolers an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the ways authors use various literary elements and movements to develop their themes and social commentaries. 

The simple instructional techniques described in this plan will help young readers learn and practice basic reading skills and strategies. Before reading, introduce your readers to the meaning of main character, setting, and plot. Then...

Middle schoolers create 3-dimensional works of art in the form of slot sculptures. I love this lesson, because it exposes students to a completely different form of art. Everything you need to do to successfully-implement this lesson is...

How do a person's musical preferences influence the way they compose music of their own? Learners analyze the sound and lyrics of Alicia Keys in relation to musicians that came before. Jazz, blues, and soul music from the past are shown...

Children learn by doing. Here, they discuss cultural uses of containers, coil and slab techniques, functional aesthetics, and the principles of art and design. The entire process for making a coil pot is fully described here to make the...

A neat art project is on the horizon. Your class can experience impasto, or textured painting with this expressive art lesson. They design and then paint using the impasto technique. This is done by mixing toilet paper into the paint....

Using a photo of themselves for inspiration, learners create a multi-media self-portrait. A digital image of each child is taken, it is uploaded into the computer where is can be experimented with in a digital format. Young artists then...

Do you have a lot of different reading levels in your class? Pair kids up by level and have them choose a book to read independently. They will make predictions, ask questions, make connections, etc. Consider creating a general reading...