A instructional activity spotlights the poem "Tamales on Christmas" by Christian Robinson. Scholars discuss their favorite foods and then examine a lively picture of a family preparing tamales. After listening to the poem twice, learners...

Construct from a canvas of words, lyrical expressions that your budding poets can share and post.  Based on refrigerator magnet poetry, creative writers can develop their poetry independently, or from a given prompt from their...

Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...

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...

Learners explore the relationships between music, poetry, and visual art. Using the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, pupils develop an awareness of the compositional elements of the Classical style, and the aesthetic effects of those...

Do your pupils know all the colors of autumn leaves? This packet of autumn-themed materials will help your kids fall right into knowledge of colors. Pupils practice making patterns, identifying and writing color words, coloring and...

Students explore the basic elements of poetry through Appalachian life poetry. In this poetry lesson, students read seven poems from Jim Wayne Miller's the Brier Poems and complete poetry analysis activities for each poem.

Use a Visual Thesaurus to compose word association poems. Discuss poetry and word association, create word maps, then practice creating poems based on playful word associations. A perfect way to celebrate "Poem in Your Pocket Day" (April...

Here, Autumn Poplars is the painting upper graders will analyze. They look at techniques, time period, and the use of impressionism to convey a natural theme. They go outside to make observations of nature and use what they see to write...

Students examine the influences and similarities between the New York School poets and Abstract Expressionist artists. They analyze paintings and poems, and write original poetry.

Students investigate how sound influences meaning in poetry by listening to sonnets. They write an analysis after listening to and reading sonnets.

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,...

I love lessons like this because they let kids see the power of art, poetry, and activism in times of social injustice and unrest. They'll analyze the art used by Emory Douglas in the production of the Black Panther newspaper and...

Who is Carl? Carl is a little monster that will help your learners draw and create in any way imaginable. Get those kids to activate creative and imaginative thinking skills with a really fun app. There are endless options that can...

Improve readers' comprehension with a pair of visualization opportunities. First they listen, eyes closed, as you read a description from Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, and discuss ideas about what they "see." After you read...

Learners compare and contrast visual and tactile textures. They create a painting that highlights one or more textures. Students express these textures in a poem to accompany their art. They recognize that words can express the visual...

In our increasingly visual society, it is often difficult for some readers to create a mental picture of a picture created only with words. An image-rich text like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby can therefore, present a real...

Fifth graders explore different kinds of poetry. They work in groups to collect different styles of poetry. Then they use charts to organize the attributes of various poems. Conclude the lesson by having each individual choose the style...

Familiarize young analysts with the relationship between words, meaning, and visual images. They consider the relationship between the painting Beach Poetry and the poem Sandpaper. They compose and illustrate an original a...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Everyone has a special, personal space; here kids will create a collage that reflects that space. They analyze the painting Soup Tureen and Apple, review two poems, and then conceptualize a personal space through art. 

The positional words up and down are the focus of a language and visual arts lesson plan. Learners get a paper plate and eight strips of construction paper. They create a spider out of their paper plate, and cut out a circle out of a...

Good readers visualize. And in our image-rich culture it is imperative that children are provided with opportunities to practice this important skill. A selection from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends and Bridge to Terabithia,...

Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...