In the Puerto Rican Carnivale, a traditional figure seen in many parades is the "vejigante," a clown-like character who wears a colorful mask. The author's kindergarteners were learning about Carnivale in Spanish class, so making vejigante masks of their own in art class was a great idea--and an opportunity to teach them papier-mache…

Painting cityscapes is a great way to teach first-grade students about warm and cool colors. Before the painting begins, the author and her class have an in-depth discussion about big cities and what types of buildings or structures that might be seen in them. They talk about large apartment and condo buildings, skyscrapers, art museums,…

In this article, first-grade students were taught the different kinds of lines that were part of the construction of various bridges--the curved lines of the arches of stone bridges, straight lines connecting the cables of a suspension bridge, vertical lines, horizontal lines, and so on. They gained practice in drawing structures and in fine brush…

Remember paint by numbers? This revived trend was a perfect solution to teaching geometric shapes to the author's first-grade students. Geometric shapes are identified and used in early elementary art classrooms, but this lesson gives students a deeper understanding of shape, encourages problem-solving, and makes a strong correlation between math…

It was nearing the end of a very long, rough winter with a lot of snow and too little time to play outside. The snow had formed small hills and valleys over the bushes and this was at the perfect height for the students to paint. In this article, the author describes how her transitional first-grade students created snow art paintings. (Contains 1…

This activity began with a picture book, Nurit Karlin's "Fat Cat On a Mat" (HarperCollins; 1998). The author and her students started their project with a 5-inch circular template for the head of their cats. They reviewed shapes as they drew the head and then added the ears and nose, which were triangles. Details to the face were added when…

The author's school is only 30 minutes from New York City, so every year when second-graders study towns and cities, the students do a project based on New York City landmarks. This year was the Statue of Liberty. The author introduced Peter Max's famous Pop art to her students, and explained that, as the art world kept changing, artists decided…

One can easily find a choice studio. In this choice-based art classroom, the students move comfortably within an organized structure of space, time and materials, managed by the teacher. They are well aware of their responsibilities and their possibilities. The teacher helps them to mine their lives and interests for the content of their…

A humid summer haze covers the River Seine and the grassy bank where young men and boys go swimming on Sunday. Everything seems so quiet, still, and very hot. They wear hats to protect them from the hot sun. The artist Georges Seurat used warm tones to give viewers the feeling of the hot sun. Seurat was trying to catch the dazzle of hot sunlight…

Artists often paint the different seasonal activities people engage in and the way the world looks as changes take place. The weather for each of the four seasons is different. Farmers plant crops and gardens in the spring and harvest their crops in the fall, just like "The Harvesters" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. To begin, children will observe…

In this article, the author describes how her second-graders created their cool polar bears. The students used the elements of shape and texture to create the bears. They used Monet's technique of dabbing paint so as to give the bear some texture on his fur.

This article features the painting "View of Toledo," based on Toledo, a very old city located on a high plateau in Spain. By the time the artist El Greco painted the picture, he had lived there for 31 years. When one looks at the picture, one will see a storm approaching and will see the city as if it were lit by a flash of lightning. What main…

Children of all ages love painting to music. Aside from discovering the natural correlation between music and art, the author's students learned about Mozart's life and work in music class. In this article, students discover the influence that music can have on their art. (Contains 1 online resource.)

In this article, second-graders create a sunflower drawing using pastel techniques that produce similar effects to Vincent van Gogh's brushstrokes. They also learn how layering colors and using white to lighten colors creates depth in their flowers.

Henri Matisse's painting, "Sideboard," opens the door to the author's first-grade students' lesson on still life. This lesson is about the process of designing, the act of making decisions, and the knowledge of one's own preferences. In this article, the author describes how the students made still life with fruit and seashells.