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Silhouettes and Interiors
Students create a multimedia piece that integrates drawing and collage. Students learn about metacognition and the discovering of self through genres of art and literature by using these steps: inspiration, brainstorm, application,...
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How Media Shapes Perception
Students explain the impact that the media may have in shaping their intellectual and emotional responses to current events. They examine broadcast and Web-based news sites to find subtexts through the use of language, audio, and visual...
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Create Your Own Ad
Young scholars examine the elements of advertising. They analyze the format and structure of advertisements. They develop awareness of advertising techniques and explain that media messages and products are composed of a series of...
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Shaping the View: Composition Basics
Students view images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site, and list the objects and figures in the image. They discuss the way their eyes move around the canvas and take note of where their eyes fall, follow and finish. Students...
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Creating AB Patterns
Students work with patterns. In this pattern lesson, students find AB patterns in nature and the manmade world. They create their own AB pattern using math manipulatives and visual arts.
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Keeping Us in Stitches Activity: Whole Cloth Quilt Design
Students examine how decorative motifs are adapted to other types of objects by craftsmen and artists. They examine photos on the Illinois State Museum website, discuss design elements, adapt a motif to a line drawing, and transfer a...
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Genetics
Students identify literary elements in each selection while learning about diversity and the struggle for equality in the United States. They use their knowledge to express the emotion and key literary elements in each piece through...
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Easy-to-Design Multiple Image Quilts
Pupils create a shadow quilt using designs from the book Shadow Quilts by Patricia Magaret and Donna Slusser. They use the book's ideas to design the quilt with their own fabric choices. They practice the shadow quilt technique and then...
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A Good Man is Hard to Find
Young scholars, in groups, read and analyze the short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor. They present their findings tot he rest of the class and then connect the various themes discussed to outside material, events...
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Introduction to Drama
Introduce your class to drama! You cast each pupil as a different character from a story you have read. They are given a general outline of the scene, act out the scene multiple times, then discuss the weak and strong aspects of each...
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Telling a Story
Do your class members complain they don’t know what to write about? Give them disposable cameras and ask them to take pictures of 12 things that make them happy. After the pictures are developed, they are pasted on a poster board and...
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Varied Beginnings: Research Process / Narrative Writing Techniques
What's the best way to start a story? Learners write a memoir using effective openings. They research the process and work through a list of hooks to use in their writing. They use at least two hooks to begin their personal memoir. A...
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What's the Big Idea
Discuss the concept of main idea in a story or other reading material. Middle schoolers identify the main idea in a passage using a technique that eliminates unnecessary words not relevant to the main idea.
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What Is the True Story of the Three Little Pigs?
Cozy up and listen to a recording of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Three Little Javelinas. Then, lead your class in a compare and contrast of the two stories by creating a Venn diagram.
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Summarizing with James and the Giant Peach
Elementary readers in literature groups practice summarizing chapter-by-chapter with Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. Focus on main idea, supporting details, and the 5 Ws. Unfortunately, a clever "peach" graphic organizer to which...
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"Re-Solutioning": Practice Brings Out Our Best
Seventh graders write scripts for scenarios to be "re-solutioned". One re-solution scenario will be role played for whole class. They also identify what personal responsibility means and who is responsible in taking personal...
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Shakespeare 2000
Comparing the more modern film Ten Things I Hate About You to The Taming of the Shrew leads to an understanding of how Shakespearean plots can be applied to modern-day situations and characters. As a culminating activity, groups select a...
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Traditional Japanese Garden Design
Pupils create a miniature Japanese garden that incorporates the elements of traditional Japanese aesthetics. They study the simplicity, asymmetrical design and incorporate traditional structures.
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ART- LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLS
Students discuss how color construct meaning in art. They will demonstrate a technical knowledge and creative use of formal elements and principals of design. Students then discuss the way their selection of color contributed to their work.
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East Meets West: The Art of Simplicity
Fifth graders examine the influences of Japan on American life through this three lesson unit. Feudal Japan with its traditional arts and culture is contrasted with current developments of the country.
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Tessellation Design And Construction
Students study the basic elements and concepts of the visual art's perceptual component - such as shape, line and color. They create tessellations that foster problem solving and reflective thinking.
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Looking at Owls in Literature, Art, and Science
Fifth graders investigate the characteristics of owls through various science and art activities. They analyze drawings by J.J. Audubon and complete a Venn diagram comparing the similarities and differences of different kinds of owls,...
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ENDOWING SUPPORT ELEMENTS
Students demonstrate how an actor might engage sensate reaction using 3 sets of stage props. They imagine and use as many sense reactions as they can to make the props become endowed with a reality. They use one table and chair to...
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Teaching a Short Story
Students work in small groups and prepare an analysis of a short story to be presented to their peers. They research the story and create a handout or a visual aid that cites sources of information and summarizes the main points of the...