Curated OER
Visual Thinking Strategies
Students explore Visual Thinking Strategy as a way to examine art and photography. They discuss the strategies, and analyze and discuss photographs using the Visual Thinking Strategies techniques.
National Gallery of Canada
My Treehouse
If you could build your own treehouse, what would it look like? Using a piece of contemporary art as inspiration, learners draw their own treehouses and add geometric and organic shapes. The lesson touches on Visual Thinking Strategies...
Curated OER
Blue Ribbon Readers: Visualizing
Introduce young readers to the comprehension strategy of visualizing by asking them to think about a place that makes them happy. After illustrating or using words to describe this place, the class moves on to an interactive game using...
EngageNY
Introducing the Performance Task Prompt and Beginning a Visual Representation
What exactly is a visual representation? Scholars use a think-pair-share to answer questions and record their information on anchor charts. Next, they use what they've learned to create visual representations of their position papers on...
Austin Independent School District
Visual Discovery Note Taking Sheets
Step into history and step out with a new understanding of events. These strategies bring a new level of understanding of key events by asking viewers to engage in and respond to projected images. Complete directions for the activity, a...
Curated OER
Sunprints for Grades K-3
Students, after being introduced to Visual Thinking Strategies, create sunprints.
Curated OER
Using Pre-reading Strategies: Infer
Use this resource to support your class practicing inference with poetry and visual art. The plan calls for an examination of "The Scream" by Edvard Munch and the "Mona Lisa" to promote speculation about artist's intent. From there, it...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan for Scaffolding Complex Texts
Enhance a class read-aloud of the children's story Hi! Fly Guy with this reading comprehension lesson. Children first listen as the teacher reads the story, stopping along the way to discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary. The book is then...
Curated OER
Pairing Picture Books with Edith Hamilton's Mythology
As a before reading strategy, class members select a tale from mythology, examine several picture book versions of the myth, and fill out part of a Venn diagram with observations about the hero in particular and the myth in general.They...
Curated OER
Lesson: Paul Chan: "Score for the 7th Light"
Music, art, and poetry coalesce in a single exhibition, and in a single lesson. Critical thinkers analyze the Fluxus art movement as it's seen in the work of Paul Chan's 7 Lights. They consider the use of poetry and music in his work,...
Curated OER
Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
Curated OER
Beach Poetry
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 beach poem...
Curated OER
Invention/Innovation/Creative Thinking/Opportunities/Ideas
Students, while examining inventions and innovators, identify, differentiate and discuss five Canadian inventors/innovations. After applying creative thinking strategies to a promotional piece, students brainstorm patents.
Curated OER
Introduction to Visualization
Fourth graders listen to The Bear's Toothache and illustrate the story in their minds. In this visualization lesson, 4th graders draw pictures of what they hear in a read aloud. Students discuss their pictures and compare and contrast...
Incredible Art
Historical Narrative Using Silhouettes
Connect art and history with a series of activities inspired by the work of contemporary artist, Kara Walker. After watching an Art 21 video about Walker and examining the images in a PowerPoint presentation, class members use...
Illustrative Mathematics
Dan’s Division Strategy
Can Dan make a conjecture about dividing fractions with the same denominators? That is what your scholars are to determine. They must show that if the statement is true, they understand how the quantities were determined, and how the...
Curated OER
Hatchet: Vocabulary Strategy
Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides places...
National Gallery of Canada
My First Print
Practice printmaking with a fun lesson. After observing images, class members use the listed materials, such as stamps and sponges, create their own prints. They experiment with layering, pressure, and paint colors.
National Gallery of Canada
Artful Emotions
Blue is sad, and red is angry, but why is that? Young artists explore the expression of emotions through art by observing and creating artwork. Starting with a questioning session about images of art, this plan moves into a sculpture...
Education Development Center
Geography of the Number Line
It's more than just numbers on a line, its an organizational, mental math machine to help learners understand the value of numbers. The tool is handy when introducing positive and negative integers to see their values and relationships....
Curated OER
Picture This: Visualization
Sixth graders practice visualizing and understanding that visualization is an important comprehension strategy. They share their visualization of the story through original artwork and determine that ideas, and cultural settings can...
Curated OER
Poetry and Visualization
Students use visualization techniques when reading poetry. In this visualization and poetry lesson plan, students work in groups to present a tableau that depicts a word from the poem as classmates guess the word. Students then read...
Curated OER
Early American Portraits: a Strategy for Learning About Artists and Their Works
Students study artworks from several different artists. They compare and contrast these works and examine the historical background of the artist and his or her times.
They develop the capacity to think critically and communicate their...
Curated OER
Maus: Making a Visual Representation
How do you represent a tragic event? Are stories of tragic events better left untold? After reading chapter two of Maus and studying other representations of the Holocaust (suggestions are included), class members create a representation...