Students need to be aware of plants in order to learn about, appreciate, care for, and protect them. However, research has found that many children are not aware of the plants in their environment. A way to address this issue might be integration of plants with various disciplines. I investigated the effectiveness of an instructional approach…

Many students struggle with writing skills. This study focuses on three students (second and fourth grades) who were classified with a learning disability by their school. These children had writing goals and objectives (i.e., characteristics of having dysgraphia) included in their Individual Education Plan. In a single case design format, each…

Art students have different learning styles. Some are visual learners who need to see the information. Some are auditory learners who need to hear the information. Others are tactile/kinesthetic learners who need to move, do, or touch in order to learn. Looking over her curriculum and lesson plans, the author realized almost every art lesson…

Russia is a very large country, spanning across the two continents of Asia and Europe. It has a rich folk-art tradition. In old Russia, among peasants, "Matryona" or "Matriosha" was a very popular female name. The Latin root "mater" means "mother." This name was associated with the image of a large,…

One of the fifth-grade art-curriculum objectives is to create a relief print. In this era of budget cuts, the author was looking for a way for her students to meet this objective by making colorful prints without using a lot of expensive printing ink. She knew she wanted to use a rainforest animal theme, as well as share the colorful art of Henri…

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.

Most people who are attracted to STEM-related fields are drawn not by a desire to take mathematics tests but to create things. The opportunity to create an algebra drawing gives students a sense of ownership and adventure that taps into the same sort of energy that leads a young person to get lost in reading a good book, building with Legos®,…

Pumpkin carving is a favorite classroom activity. Around late October, the halls are filled with the sour smell of raw pumpkin innards, as parents, teachers and students are up to their elbows in yellowish strings and slime. These round, orange squash are transformed into jack-o'-lanterns that are placed around the school. The day after Halloween,…

Empowering settings are important places for people to develop leadership skills in order to enact social change. Yet, due to socio-cultural constructions of childhood in the US, especially constructions around working class and working poor children of Color, they are often not seen as capable or competent change agents, or in need of being in…

Finding common interests with which to engage learners from different cultural backgrounds can be a challenge in any classroom. It is particularly so in an urban, English/Spanish dual-language immersion school, which draws a socioeconomically and linguistically diverse population of students from a wide geographic area. The curriculum design in…

The present study investigates the plasticity of altruistic behavior in children, analyzing the effect of a short intervention on 6- to 7-year-olds. After a 10-session intervention performed in a school context, altruism significantly increased. The intervention, which included relaxation practices, cooperative activities and emotional security…

In the author's experience, sewing projects have consistently led to a quiet, engaged artroom full of busy, motivated students. Maybe it's the gradual fusion of pieces of fabric to make a tidy, compact unit, or the magic of the thread holding cloth together, or the repetitive action of making stitches. Whatever the reason, the rhythm of sewing a…

Researching whimsical and spirited artists can inspire new ideas and methods of communicating how art remains a valuable part of people's lives both in and out of the classroom. This instructional resource explores one such contemporary artist who, driven by a curiosity in human interaction, continues to explore the world in fanciful and…