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,...
National Gallery of Canada
Shadow Chasers!
Experiment with light and shadow with a photography instructional activity. Learners first view several artistic photographs. They then play with different levels of light and various objects, eventually putting together compositions and...
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Towing a Boat, Honfleur
Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...
Curated OER
The Science of Shadow Puppets
Students explore the art of shadow puppetry. In this performing arts lesson, students study the functions of lighting in the puppet theater as they examine the transmission, absorption, and reflection of light. As a culminating activity,...
Curated OER
Sunset Pictures
Sunsets and shadows are lovely subjects for creative projects. Kids take a good look at images of sunsets, then use paint and construction paper to create a silhouetted sunset image. Tip: This project is a great way to illustrate a poem...
Curated OER
Shaded Bottles
Learners draw, and then paint three-dimensional bottles to practice shading which shows shape and perspective. The step-by-step process for creating dimensional still life art is outlined, which makes teaching art an attainable task. Oil...
EngageNY
Making a Claim: Moon Shadow’s Point of View of the Immediate Aftermath
Body paragraphs are the building blocks of every essay. Pupils view and discuss a model essay using a rubric to evaluate one of its supporting paragraphs. Next, scholars use what they've learned to continue drafting their own literary...
Curated OER
Shadow Puppets
Students examine the role of shadow puppets. They create their own puppet and put on a play.
Curated OER
Chinese Shadow Puppets
Students explore Chinese culture by performing a shadow puppet play. They create the puppets, develop a script, and rehearse and perform a play which illustrates an understanding of Chinese stories and traditions.
Curated OER
Pastel Drawing like Vincent Van Gogh
Learners discuss the elements of art and design found in a series of flower paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. They explore art, shading, and color as they create mirrored representations of the master's art, using oil pastel.
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Beach at Blue Point
And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens'...
Curated OER
Art as a Reflection of Society
Students write about their interpretations of "Glow of the City," discuss "Glow of the City" in terms of imagery, symbolism, use of shadows and light, and ways that it reflects life in the late 1920s in New York.
Curated OER
Poetry: "Seven Types of Shadow"
Students examine the way ghosts are portrayed in films and literature. In this poetry lesson, students listen to the first five stanzas of the poem "Seven Types of Shadow" read by U A Fanthorpe on The Poetry Archive website and...
Curated OER
Silhouettes
Students explore the challenges of creating a silhouette. In this silhouette lesson, students learn to produce a silhouette from a projected image. Students compare and contrast the making of a silhouette to a drawing or painting.
Curated OER
Lines and Patterns
Here are six outstanding art lessons on geometry, line, shape and form, light and shadow, line and pattern, and tessellation for you. Each activity is well-worth implementing with your art students. These lessons would be especially good...
Curated OER
Textured Animals - Stuffed Animal Still Life
After posing their stuffed animals your young artists will sketch them in light colored chalk. After sketching, the second graders fill the animal with lines to show the fur, or texture of the animal. They put a shadow under their...
Curated OER
Torn Paper Portraits: A Value Study
High schoolers "paint" with torn paper!. They focus on the placement of features, facial planes, shadows and highlights using a black and white image. The results from this instructional activity are visually stunning, and the materials...
Asian Art Museum
Japanese Architecture for Elementary School Students
Art and architecture go hand-in-hand. Kids watch clips from the Hayo Miyazaki film Spirited Away to better understand Japanese customs and architecture. The discussion questions included are very good, and will help you lead the class in...
Curated OER
Stewart's Boxes
Learners collect memorabilia and create shadow boxes in the style of David Stewart. They also compose a poem and explain their identity in an oral presentation. This is a rare lesson that works quite well for a variety of age levels.
Japan Society
Japanese Architecture for High School Students
Japanese architecture is rich in symbolism and culture. Critical thinkers engage in three activities intended to expose them to the beauty of Japan. They read through the book, Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki and watch the...
Curated OER
Relief Drawing
High schoolers choose an interesting view for an art relief project. They outline their composition, and shade their relief using charcoal pencil. The results are fabulous! One nice thing about this art project is that the materials...
Brooklyn Museum
HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture
Visual arts lessons don't always mean the children need to make art. Here, they will practice using their visual literacy skills to analyze four images through the compare and contrast method. The first two images deal with gender...
Asian Art Museum
Community Identity?
To better understand the contemporary arts movement in Japan, learners engage in a guided discussion. They view several photograms by the artist Kunie Sugirua, then discuss the elements of art and techniques used to create each...
Brookly Museum
Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
Discuss pop-art, Andy Warhol, and the concept of collaborative painting with your class. Learners won't be analyzing Warhol's work, but they will be engaging in group activities to understand the collaboration in art. They'll make a...