The author's school is fortunate to have two therapy dogs, Daisy and Rosie, both West Highland terriers (Westies). Daisy is such a comfort to students when they are sad, scared, or just in need of a quiet friend. She assists students with special needs as well as students whose needs are special. In this article, the author describes how she…

Artists have created portraits of people for thousands of years. In sculpture, a portrait of a person's face often includes the neck and part of the shoulders and chest. These artworks are called portrait busts. In this article, the author describes how her fifth-grade students created clay portrait busts on pedestal columns. The objectives are…

Students see cartoons and movies all the time, but do not always understand how such images are created to show change or movement. Yet even young students can gain understanding through simple drawings of their own that show figures changing in sequence. In this article, the author presents an art activity wherein students are asked to draw a…

The author's encounter with a live owl and her purchase of a Peruvian folk art gourd inspired a new interdisciplinary experience for the author's fourth grade students. In this article, she describes how her students explored owls through clay sculpture. (Contains 2 resources and 1 online resource.)

In this article, an art teacher relates how she uses her enthusiasm for collecting aesthetic objects to transform or generate ideas for art problems for her students, in the belief that teachers teach best about that which they are most enthusiastic. In her classes, she introduces the idea of collecting by asking students to discuss what they…

In this article, the authors relate how they decided to offer their fifth graders a one-day celebration in honor of Diwali, one of the most popular Hindu festivals in India, enjoyed by people of every religion. They combined learning about the tradition with Indian music and film, art-making, special foods, and dance performances. Their students…

Have you ever thought of using music as a subject for art? When the author discovered that her third graders studied jazz in music class every February, it seemed an opportune time for her to simultaneously focus on music in art, specifically through the work of African-American artist Romare Bearden. To familiarize her third-grade students with…

The concept upon which this book is based is known by a variety of acronyms or terms such as Comprehensive Art Education (CAE), Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE), or integrated curriculum. These similar educational approaches maintain art as central to the curriculum, a bridge that unites content areas in logical and meaningful ways. DBAE,…

A milagro is a little metal pendant that symbolizes a request, a prayer, or a wish. This "Teacher's Guide" and bilingual "Student Booklet" accompany a bilingual videotape and color wall poster in a multimedia package intended to introduce students in grades 3-8 to the folk art tradition of milagros. The videotape, presented…