Curated OER
Salad Sisters
Learners practice and perform 8 and 16 beat rhythmic patterns in 4/4 using the song "Salad Sisters" as a basis in this elementary-level General Music lesson. An amazing lesson for teaching cooperative music composition techniques and...
Curated OER
Movement Adventure
Students discover movement and pantomime techniques in this adventurous story telling experience for kindergarten. Assessment is done through a short question and answer session and students drawing the "adventure".
Curated OER
Tempo Contrasts in partner Dances
Students explore the differences in tempo through movement. In groups, students create an original dance phrase and illustrate both fast and slow movement. They share their observations and evaluate each dance according to originality...
Curated OER
Digable Planets, K.B.'s Alley When Jazz Meets Hip-Hop
Students explore the musical style of jazz and identify its elements while listening to hip-hop recordings. They select two styles of music and fuse them together in this lesson.
Curated OER
VH1 Road to Fame: Harry Connick Jr. - Lesson 3
Students sing a vocal improvisation on a 12-bar blues progression. After watching a video on Harry Connick Jr., students try their own scat singing on the two-measure break.
Curated OER
A Wing and a Prayer
Fourth graders improvise missing harmony accompaniment for a soloist performing "The Star Spangled Banner." Groups select several familiar melodies that they can produce while individual students take turns improvising a new harmony part.
Curated OER
Soho Square
View the film Soho Square. Improvise sequences based around everyday locations and consider how theater and film differ in the way they engage an audience with the group of characters. Develop a group of performances using the extract...
Ballet Austin
The History of Modern Dance
The evolution of modern dance, and the dance history of many of the key figures in the development of this uniquely American form, are the focus of a 13-page packet that includes photos of revolutionaries.
Curated OER
A Light in the Storm
Examine the genre of historical fiction while reading A Light in the Storm. They extract events in chronological order to make a timeline. Then, they use information in the book important to the characters to create a presentation of an...
Curated OER
Shadows & Light, Science & Puppetry
Lights, shadows, action, and inquiry await your artistic scientists. They explore the way light travels, absorbs, reflects, and transmits through shadow play. They create folktale-inspired shadow puppets, explore the science of light,...
Curated OER
Make a Book Into a Movie
Turn your high schoolers into casting directors with this lesson, which focuses on turning a class novel into a movie. Choosing the cast for a movie based on a class reading, as well as designing a poster for the movie, helps young...
John F. Kennedy Center
Folktale Theatre
Introduce your middle schoolers to a performance and movement activity that uses their favorite stories from fairytales and folklore. They practice basic acting skills, create dialogues with a partner, and then as guided practice,...
Curated OER
Finding the Area of Polygons
Third graders are exposed to finding the area of polygons by decomposing figures and recomposing them into rectangles. This strategy allows children to expand on their prior knowledge of constructing shapes by rearranging parts into...
Curated OER
High and Low Tones
Students perform movements to trigger high and low tones in music produced by percussionists.
Curated OER
Truth in Advertising: When to Ask Questions
High schoolers view different commercials and ad campaigns that present opposing notions of "truth." Students use these commercials to evaluate what makes an effective public service announcement (PSA) or advertisement, then choose a...
Curated OER
Tolerance: Words that Hurt/Words that Heal
Students "role-play" the part of a person who says unkind things and are photographed while doing so. They then act out a story about making friends. They practice saying kind things and are photographed. Word bubbles are added...
Curated OER
Collaborative Choreography, Contrasting Emotions
Students demonstrate choreographic principles, processes, and structures.
Curated OER
America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)
Students perform a song using correct rhythms, accurate pitches, and dynamic phrasing. They perform an accompaniment to "America" on Orff instruments.
Curated OER
Discovering Peace
Students explore vocabulary related to peace. For this peace lesson, students define the word "peace" and create a poem about peace. Students create a "peace quilt" as a follow-up activity.
Curated OER
Exploring Pioneer America
Fourth graders research pioneers who had a strong influence on westward expansion. In this westward expansion lesson, 4th graders write an essay about four pioneers and an interview script about one. Students work in pairs to present...
Curated OER
Dinosaur Stomp
Second graders write a dinosaur poem using information from a research activity. In this dinosaur poetry and music lesson, 2nd graders listen to the book Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp in music class. They work in small groups to...
Curated OER
Wilderness Survival: A Field Practicum
Students use hands-on field-testing of authentic application from principles pertaining to: Psychology- A. Develop a positive, can-do attitude with a high degree of self-reliance that is transferable to human interactions outside of the...
Curated OER
Keeping Us in Stitches Activity: Crazy-Quilt Collage Design
Students create collages using the irregular-shaped and sized pieces, decorative stitching, and applied or painted motifs that reflect the Crazy-Quilt style, and explain how and why their design fits into that style.
Curated OER
Abstractions/Gestures
Students examine and display the differences between literal, and non-literal movement and abstraction using a creative project in movement. This project originates as an individual item, culminating in a small group performance.