National Gallery of Canada
My Abstraction
What makes a color warm, and what makes a color cool? Explore colors and abstract art through an observation activity and an art assignment. Learners look at images and talk about colors before making their own compositions with...
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The Looking Glass: Artwork of Robert Harris
A series of 4 activities foster critical thinking, careful observation, and creative expression with the work of Canadian artist Robert Harris. Learners respond to half a painting and then to the whole picture while listening to a poem;...
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The Mystique of the Artist
Your high schoolers explore the role of artists in society in a creative three-week unit. First they customize art supply bags using paint, embroidery, appliqué, and other media. They imagine their ideal artistic work space and...
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Nataraj Shiva as Lord of the Dance
Learners considers the piece of artwork entitled, The Nataraj, Lord Shiva and Lord of the Dance to visualize several of the most important ideas of Hinduism.
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Monoprinting with Washable Markers
An art activity can benefit special needs pupils in a variety of ways. The class creates mono prints. Focus on increasing motor skills development, expressive communication, and safe handling of materials. Discuss or show a video of...
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Mapping Your Identity: A Back-To-School Ice Breaker
Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...
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Papyrus to PDA
What a great project. Graphic arts students consider the social, political, and economic impact made by a chosen invention. They build an argument to substantiate their reasons for choosing said invention. They create an oral...
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Seeing the Image in Imagery: A Lesson Plan Using Film
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...
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Using Words as a Way into Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief
Use the Visual Thesaurus to predict the subject matter of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief. A pre-reading activity encourages middle schoolers to use context clues and word meaning to discover what the book is about. After...
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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 lesson are visually stunning, and the materials you need to get...
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Parody Hilarity
Upper grade and middle school writers study the art of parody. In this language arts instructional activity, learners study the work of Lewis Carroll, read and discuss parodies from the book, Alice in Wonderland, and construct their own...
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Everyone Can Write Poetry
Embark on a journey of writing several different types of poetry. Fifth graders read several examples, and use the examples to model their own writing. Each poem is to be accompanied by a different art visual representation. In the end,...
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Fly High with Flag Day
Wave goodbye to the school year with these lesson ideas on how to teach about the significance of the US flag.
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...
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Reading Strategies
Good readers have internalized a system of strategies to understand text. While most reading programs explicitly teach these strategies, this presentation could be used as a discussion starter to help students understand such things as...
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Expanded Images
Allow your young artists to use their imagination with this fun art project! Cut out various images from a magazine to be the spark to your artists' creativity. Have them glue an image onto a piece of paper, then draw a backdrop to go...
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Reading Pictures, Seeing Poetry
Students examine the painting, The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan based on a poem by Lord Byron. They compare how Romantic artists and writers made choices about visual elements and language to depict their subjects.
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Media Literacy in Presentations
Middle schoolers study the three types of mass media messages: visual media, written media, and audio media. After a class discussion which has them list examples of each, learners get into pairs and work on analyzing the "Four A's" in...
Film Foundation
To Kill a Mockingbird: What Is a Movie?
The challenge film makers face when creating a film based on a novel or nonfiction text is the focus of a interdisciplinary resource that uses To Kill a Mockingbird to teach viewers how to read the visual images of film. A...
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The Tell-Tale Hearts of Writers
Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of...
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Movie Books- Children's Stories
Students use iMovie to write, illustrate, and narrate a movie book to bring their story alive visually and capture the interest of and inspire nonreaders at their school.
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The Circulatory System--Part VI
Learners outline a body on butcher paper. Students fill in the circulatory system using materials of various textures. Learners decorate all the parts of the circulatory system with art articles, like buttons, yarn, etc.
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Television Newscasts
When we watch news broadcasts on television, we receive a much more visual perspective than when we read the newspaper. How do sets, clothing, and music contribute to our understanding of the story? Compare American and Canadian news...
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Covering the Issue
Examine how art and music can be powerful tools for conveying a political or social message. After considering the issues surrounding rapper Paris, students design their own album covers that reflect their political and/or social...