Curated OER
Visual Arts - Mexican Indian Yarn Painting
Have you ever seen a Mexican yarn painting? They're beautiful! Create a Mexican yarn painting with your class using this instructional activity. Start by discussing Mexico's culture and viewing different yarn paintings. After reading...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Becoming an Animal
The Kwakwaka'wakw are indigenous people from Vancouver Island and British Columbia. The class analyzes a Kwakwak'wakw ceremonial mask, how it was used, and its cultural significance. They then create animal masks representing their...
Spring Branch Independent School District
Elementary Art Curriculum Guide
Get crafting with hundreds of pages of art lessons! The plans are organized into topics, which include clay, drawing, composition and design, mixed media, painting, printmaking, and paper.
Curated OER
How Do Artists Effectively Relate Historic Events?
Learners explore African American migration. For this black culture and history lesson, students use a map to identify northern and southern states in which African Americans lived in the 1900s. Learners observe and describe objects and...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Patience & Skill: The Craft of Carving
Highly ornate or complex art can only be mastered with patience and skill. Learners explore the skills required to carve complex geometric designs seen on the image of a palace facade. They examine the image, discuss carving techniques,...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Making History to Go
Learners use their higher-order thinking skills to understand how visual images have been used to tell stories. They analyze a Lakota tipi that tells a story through paint and artistry. They then make miniature tipis using butcher paper...
National Gallery of Canada
A Unity Wall Drawing
Build class community with an art project. Learners first examine and discuss works of art. They then contribute to a class mural by tracing their hands and decorating them in relation to their own cultures. The final mural...
Getting to Know
Shape and Form in Art
Introduce youngsters to the important role shape and form play in art with this extensive collection of activities and projects. From teaching first graders how to create mandalas to engaging third and fourth graders in the design...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Comparing Cultural Dances
All cultures express similar thoughts, feelings, and ideas. But, often times those things are expressed differently. Learners compare and contrast traditional dances from two cultures. They watch videos of each performance, stop to...
Curated OER
Simple Suminagashi
What a wonderful way to meld art and culture! Learners create art work in the Suminagashi style using this detailed lesson plan. This art form, which is Japanese in origin, employs ink to create beautiful results. This will be a hit with...
Curated OER
Basket Making
Young scholars create a basket. In this basket making instructional activity, students explore the Ojibway culture and discover the history of basket making. Young scholars design and construct a basket.
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: How Coyote Came to Shuffle Off to Buffalo
Creative kids read, discuss, play-act, and sketch to examine the cultural significance of Old Man Coyote. They listen to several stories involving Coyote, analyze the Harry Fonseca painting Shuffle Off to Buffalo, and write Coyote...
Curated OER
Sharing African Culture
Students investigate African American culture by reading aloud an African folk tale and illustrating the tale. They use their illustrations to create a book or a bulletin board that retells the folk tale.
Curated OER
A Nation of Many Cultures
Students create a presentation about themselves to share with the class. They include information from their family and their heritage. They compare and contrast their culture to their classmates.
Curated OER
Lesson: More Than a Dollar's Worth of Meaning
The Chinese, Dish with the Eight Buddhist Emblems contains symbols and visual references for learners to explore. They search for Buddhist symbolism on the dish and then they use their observation skills to locate and explore...
UTSA Institute of Texas Cultures
Teaching Through Kamishibai and The Art of Chinese Calligraphy
Young learners discover kamishibai, a popular Japanese storytelling art, and explore how these Japanese folktales illustrate the country's cultural themes and values through discussion and storyboarding.
Curated OER
Applying Music to Literature
Kids explore music, history, culture, and literature in a multi-faceted lesson plan. They discuss how both historical and cultural contexts shape music, art, and literature, and then apply these concepts as they engage in a listening...
Curated OER
Native American Story Necklaces
Combine a study of Native American history and art in this lesson. Learners discuss the importance of fetishes in Native American culture, the history of necklaces, and create their own works of art. Your class will find this to be both...
Curated OER
Aboriginal Legends
Learners listen to and read legends and see that these legends helped the Aboriginals explain their everyday life. Through their stories and legends we find that Aboriginal values, attitudes and cultural identities are shared.
Curated OER
New Zealand Koru Art
Students learn about and create koru art. In this cultural art lesson, students read M?ori legends and learn about M?ori koru designs. Students practice forming a koru shape, and, when ready,draw a large koru on cartridge paper using...
Curated OER
Lesson: Contemporary Tribal Designs
There is a lot to be learned from a horse. Kids analyze a contemporary tribal design found on a large installation piece. Then they create tribal designs of their own that show similarities and difference between cultures and time...
Curated OER
Symbols of Culture
Students discover artistic symbols from cultures around the world. In this cultural murals lesson, students observe different murals on-line, and select two to write about on their student blog. The students investigate the murals and...
Curated OER
Family Origins and American Cultural Pluralism
Students explore, analyze and discuss family origins, special legacies, and racial/cultural groups in literature and art that exposes them to positive examples in African-American history and culture. They encounter examples from dance,...
Sargent Art
Destination Art: Paper Mola Collage
The Kuna Indians hail from the San Blas Island near Panama. Learners will investigate their culture by creating paper mola collages, just like the ones created by the indigenous Panamanians. They'll focus on understanding the symbolism...