Curated OER
The Hare and the Water: A Tanzanian Folk Tale
"The Hare and the Water," a Tanzanian folk tale, lends a global perspective to literary analysis. Learners spend the first two days reading and storyboarding. On day three, they examine folk tale elements (worksheet included), and design...
Screen play writing
Writing creatively can be hard! Students with little or no background in creative writing will love this film-making project. They choose a book or story they like, then in partners go through the process of planning-writing-...
Curated OER
What a Character!
Guide your readers to explore character traits. As a class, discuss and record the traits of a commonly-known fairy tale character. Then do the same with the main character in the class novel. Finally, have learners use magazines...
Curated OER
American Federal Style
Explore American Federal design as it pertains to furniture, architecture, and influences on modern style. By the end of this lesson, learners should be able to recognize Federal design, its place in history, and how it has influenced...
Tasha McKelvey
Clay Whistles
Create clay whistles with your elementary or middle school students. The project is outlined in great detail here, complete with step-by-step photographs, finished examples, a materials list, student handouts, and a rubric. Students...
New York City Department of Education
Theater Units for Lower and Upper Elementary Levels
Introduce middle schoolers to playwriting and the elements of drama with a six-session storytelling unit that encourages kids to expand their acting and writing skills. The 12-page packet includes overviews of the lessons,...
Curated OER
A Power Point Slide Show for Third Graders
Third graders explore PowerPoint. In this technology lesson, 3rd graders select a topic of interest and follow a guided lesson researching their topic. Students complete storyboards, introductions, table of contents and...
Lee County High School
Clay Animal Whistles
Investigate North Carolina pottery history by creating clay animal whistles, a traditional leisure activity in the region. They research a particular animal and jot down its attributes to include in their project. Find step-by-step...
Berkshire Museum
Camouflage!: Collecting Data and Concealing Color
Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science activity. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...
National Gallery of Canada
Reading Symbols
Introduce your upper-elementary students to printmaking. Class members view prints, select and research symbols in a piece, and create their own sets of prints using styrofoam trays. Pupils can wash off the paint on their trays to make...
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
Mastering One-Point Perspective
Cover one-point perspective through observation and practice. Class members examine several works of art that use one-point perspective, look at magazine images to find the vanishing points and horizon lines, and draw their own city...
National Gallery of Canada
Social Realism
Examine social strife in art. Class members first observe some pieces, and then find an image to inspire their own art. They outline the picture, analyze the composition, make alterations, and color their work.
National Gallery of Canada
Home Sweet Home
What are your pupils' homes like? Incorporate their homes into a drawing lesson. Using an enlarged photograph, class members draw a grid so they can easily split their drawing in half. The final product should demonstrate cool colors,...
National Gallery of Canada
Make a Parfleche
Examine American Indian art and culture by observing contemporary art and creating original pieces. Class members discuss artwork included in the plan and use these images to help inspire their own work, which should represent...
Sandra Effinger
Bulletin Board Project
Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...
Knoxville Art Museum
Lee Walton: Codes in Drawings
Familiar with the systems-based sports drawing of experimental artist Lee Walton? If so, this drawing exercise if for you. Young artists observe an activity over time, develop a coded language for the activity, and then draw a...
Armory Center for the Arts
Place Value Collage
How can art represent math? Use a instructional activity on place value collages to illustrate the different meanings that numbers have in their designated places. Kids observe photographs and paintings that show place value, then work...
Smart Museum of Art
The Making of a Superhero
Thor, Loki, Iron Man, and Captain America. As part of their study of Greek and Roman gods and heroes, middle schoolers compare the characters in The Avengers to Greek counterparts. Individuals then create their own superhero,...
Pearson
Musical Theater Performance
Musical theater is a trifecta, requiring cast members to be actors, singers, and dancers. Help theater arts students develop these skills with a unit designed to prepare them for a staging of a musical.
Curated OER
Pop Art Ice Cream Painting
Students create paintings of ice cream treats using Pop Art as an inspiration while developing skills in painting in this 4th through 6th grade Art lesson. Included with the lesson are possible extensions and suggested evaluation rubric.
Curated OER
Superhighway Scholars
Learners study the states of their choice by using Superhighway Scholars website. In this Unites States history lesson plan, students create a collage using information collected about a state of their choosing. This lesson plan provides...
Curated OER
Musical Alphabet-Skipping Up
Learners will read a study sheet about skipping up from one note to another, and complete a worksheet, filling in blanks and writing a skip up from given letters. A grading rubric is included.
Curated OER
Learning Musical Terms
Students investigate musical instruments and sounds by defining musical terms. In this music appreciation activity, students define many vocabulary words and utilize a study sheet for memorization. Students are quizzed on the...
