Curated OER
Watercolor Rainbows
Who doesn't love a rainbow? Little ones adore them, so why not make rainbows the subject of your next art project. Your class can use watercolor to paint rainbows. As they do, have them identify the colors in the rainbow, talk about how...
Curated OER
Have It Your Way Sandwich Collage
You want to make a sandwich out of fabric and paper? If so, this art project provides the instructions needed. Learners will use a variety of fabrics and paper to construct a sandwich through collage. Tip: Have leaners describe the...
Curated OER
Dragonfly Sculptures
Art projects are great when they apply to other subjects. First study insects, their parts, and their habitats. Then have little ones create a dragonfly. They use clothes pins, raffia, pipe-cleaners, and paint to construct their...
Curated OER
Glue Fish
Get out the glue and those oil pastels its time for an art project. The class explores shape, art, and color as they draw fish with glue, let them dry, and then color them as they wish. This project would be wonderful after discussing...
Curated OER
Shoe Fish
Fishy, fishy, fishy, fish! Kids take off their shoes and trace them to create fish for a large aquarium art project. Each traced shoe shape is decorated with gills, fins, scales, and eyes, then hug on an aquarium background. Three book...
Curated OER
Paper Clay Fish Sculpture
Why not get creative and use paper clay to create colorful fish sculptures? All the steps needed to complete this activity are included. Your class will sculpt beautiful fish while exploring color, shape, and creative thinking. Use these...
Teaching English
Fairy Tales; Not Just for Kids
"Once upon a time . . ." Language learners examine the key elements of well-known fairy tales and then craft their own.
Curated OER
TechnoKnight
Students examine world history by creating arts and crafts. In this middle ages instructional activity, students discuss the relevence of items such as a helmet, shield and family crest. Students complete middle ages worksheets, create...
Curated OER
Other Activities -- Rainbow Fish
Students are read "The Rainbow Fish" and discuss characteristics of being a good friend. They create their own fish to show the qualities they discussed. They receive one scale to add to the fish.
Curated OER
Pourquoi Tales
Lead a web search for information on writers and discuss the craft of purposeful writing as a class. Your students investigate "pourquoi tales" which are "why" stories. and then write their own examples of pourquoi stories to share in a...
Curated OER
A Monster of a Metaphor
What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...
Curated OER
Daily Lesson Plan for the Struggling Writer and Speller
Special educators know that it isn't all about the lesson plan, but rather the strategies and practices you choose to use. Here are a set of research-based practices and tips you can use to inform your choices when teaching learners who...
Curated OER
Letter Writing
Keep the art of letter writing alive in this age of Tweet and Twitter! The 10 activities detailed in this resource lead pupils through the process of crafting classic forms. A list of and links to famous letters is also included as part...
Curated OER
Using Drama to Examine Communities: Walking in Others' Shoes
Encourage your readers to make connections between texts with this resource. After compiling notes for each text read (you choose the texts), groups craft skits in which major characters from each text meet. There is a rubric for the...
Poets.org
Love as a Two-way Street
Create an abundance of understanding, as your high school learners learn to analyze multiple love poems. Part one of this resource has learners define what love is, examine art that reflects the love between Robert and Elizabeth...
ESL Kid Stuff
Christmas Lesson 1
Little ones sing Christmas carols, complete craft projects, and play word games while learning new vocabulary in part one of two-part ESL lesson series.
Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day lesson plan integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson plan...
Curated OER
Our Town: Using Song Lyrics in the Classroom
Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” and Billy Joel’s “Allentown” motivate young lyricists to craft poems about their own home town. Groups compare the two songs, identifying details, symbols, and conflicts. Individuals then picture a place...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Benjamin Franklin and Learning a Lesson
Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...
Japan Society
Japanese Architecture for High School Students
Japanese architecture is rich in symbolism and culture. Critical thinkers engage in three activities intended to expose them to the beauty of Japan. They read through the book, Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki and watch the film...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: The Net Neutrality Debate
Should Internet users who send data-heavy content pay higher fees than those who are involved in activities, like sending an email, that have less content? This question is at the heart of the Net Neutrality debate. After watching a PBS...
Curated OER
"O Captain! My Captain!"
Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln? After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of exercises...
Curated OER
Biopoem: Ender's Game
Here's an activity designed to encourage character analysis. Readers craft a biopoem for a character in Orson Scott Cards' popular science fiction novel Ender's Game.
Asian Art Museum
Japanese Architecture for Elementary School Students
Art and architecture go hand-in-hand. Kids watch clips from the Hayo Miyazaki film Spirited Away to better understand Japanese customs and architecture. The discussion questions included are very good, and will help you lead the class in...