This feature article has two goals. The first is to muse about the role of style and styling in the world of design and designing. The second is to present a project with which to engage students in several aspects of industrial design. This brief has been developed to use it either solely as a research activity or as a combined research and…

Weekends, summers, and holidays are better spent reading and participating in fun activities with one's child. Time at home can be spent doing something creative by creating thematic book bags that children and parents can check out of the class. In this way, children are able to see their parents making reading and school a priority, while…

For many students, public speaking is a communication apprehension inducing event. Others may enter the public speaking classroom as confident speakers but are restrictive in their approach to topic selection and alternative solution development. Both scenarios present a particular challenge for teachers who require students to present a variety…

Although the National Standards include achievement standards for improvisation for elementary school students, music teachers sometimes are reluctant to pursue improvisation study with young students. First- and second-year instrumental students, often older elementary or middle school students, may have difficulty studying improvisation because…

The Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is featured. The 21-year-old center is an ongoing experiment in how electronics can shape the future, and it helped pioneer digital videography and computer multimedia capabilities, among other innovations. So it's no surprise that it is home to Lifelong Kindergarten, a high-tech…

Mathematics and art are often considered opposites in the traditional curriculum. In this project with fourth graders, mathematics and art provided a springboard for using fractions, in particular, the multiplication of fractions, using Chinese kites. The project began with a discussion of, "What does an artist really do in a mathematics…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of Rudolf Laban's theories of movement to the teaching of choreography and improvisation. The paper presents learning activities appropriate for early encounters in the development of artistic process skills. It is predicated on the theory that the choreographic process is a heuristic process…

This paper addresses the simplification of music as a way to introduce all beginners to making music. Creative play is emphasized to encourage students to feel ownership of the music they create. Suggestions are given for improvisation to known songs with small guitars, ukuleles and dulcimers. The paper advocates a return to the roots of music…

Poetry offers excellent possibilities for teaching creative dance. Curriculum development and lesson plan ideas in the area of poetry interpretation through dance and movement for elementary school students are described. (CJ)

A grass roots effort led to the first state-sponsored contest for invention and innovation for children. (Author)

Describes a day-long festival of art and creative activities and international cultural events for handicapped children. Children participated in many music-making and art projects. (AM)

Describes the variety of play spaces found in urban areas in Denmark: in banks, stores and individual businesses, neighborhood parks and small pocket playgrounds, specialized adventure and traffic playgrounds with supervised activities, and commercial amusement parks. (CM)

Discusses the New Games movement which promotes a series of innovative creative group games for children and offers a list of games and directions on how to play them. The games provide an unstructured, cooperative alternative to the structured, competitive games traditionally played by young children. (CM)

The author describes a learning center in which primary aged gifted students are encouraged to think creatively. Examples of three creative activities are given. (CL)

The American Library Association (ALA) enlisted the help of design students at the University of Illinois/Chicago to produce an advertising campaign for the nation's libraries. The campaign, which took 15 weeks to prepare, resulted in bold, unusual, sometimes ambiguous, and thought-provoking ads. It embodied the relationship between libraries and…