Latin American customs and colors play an important role as second graders are introduced to multicultural experiences through food, music, dance, art, and craft. In this article, the author describes a printing project inspired by Guatemalan weavings and amate bark paintings. (Contains 2 online resources.)

Afterschool programs are becoming an increasingly important part of many elementary students' educational experience. Though individual afterschool programs vary, arts experiences are often a part of the curriculum. This article discusses a three-day art project in an afterschool program with no specific arts component which illustrates the…

The study of the beautiful monarch butterfly lends itself to a vast array of subject matter, and offers the opportunity to meet a large and varied number of standards and objectives for many grade levels. Art projects featuring monarchs may include many cross-curricular units such as math (symmetry and number graphing), science (adaptation and…

The process of finding inspiration for a class project is fascinating and intriguing. In this article, the author describes a class project inspired by the gyre, a widespread circulating rotation or vortex of ocean currents, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This particular gyre is the location of an enormous floating mass of garbage,…

Architecture is a versatile, multifaceted area to study in the artroom with multiple age levels. It can easily stimulate a study of basic line, shape, and various other art elements and principles. It can then be extended into a more extensive study of architectural elements, styles, specific architects, architecture of different cultures, and…

Every fall season, each grade level of Rowland Hall St. Mark's Lower School in Salt Lake City, Utah, completes a mask-making project to be featured in a schoolwide parade. This sparked an opportunity to incorporate the fourth-grade unit of realistic and observational drawing with mask making. In this article, the author describes how her students…

In this article, the author describes a lesson inspired by the book, "Who Will Tuck Me in Tonight?" by Carol Roth. The author used this lesson to teach her primary students how to use a ruler to make straight lines and how to use lines and shapes to draw animals. She also used the lesson to teach them about crayon resist. (Contains 1 online…

Coming up with new projects for students is easy, but finding projects the majority of the children enjoy and do well with is quite another matter. In this article, the author describes how students made an advanced form of finger painting project. This project was inspired by Allen Montague, an artist from North Carolina, who was demonstrating…

Vincent van Gogh's work is universal in today's world. People see it everywhere, from museums to television commercials, and enjoy the visual experiences it gives them. This article describes how students simulated a van Gogh work in their own way using tempera paint.

In a discussion about architecture, the author's students learned that architects must consider their client's needs when designing a home. To complement their study of bird migration in science class, the author decided to ask students to "think like a bird" in order to design wooden birdhouses that they could take home and actually use. This…

The author's second-grade students were completing a unit in their classroom on fairy tales. The author was asked to come up with a coinciding project to emphasize the imaginative and magical aura of fairy tales. A few years ago, the author attended the Philadelphia Flower Show where the theme was Ireland. Among the outstanding landscape exhibits…

This section is full of stories from teaching artists working to clarify what needs to change within their practices and moving toward solutions--whether it's supporting a classroom of learners in new and unexpected ways, reassessing one's approach in the classroom, shepherding an individual child toward success, or professionalizing an entire…

This study examined the self-efficacy in science, art, dance, and music; attitudes concerning contributions of people of various ethnic/cultural groups; and science learning of students involved in an after-school arts-integrated science enrichment project. Students dramatized three traditional animal legends from African, Native American, and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of two innovative, art-and-literature-based approaches to teaching writing (Picturing Writing: Fostering Literacy Through Art and Image-Making Within The Writing Process) on elementary school students' writing, visual literacy, and reading skills. RMC Research Corporation of Portsmouth, New…

Music training has been found to produce a range of cognitive benefits for young children, although well-controlled evaluation of the effects on psychosocial functioning has been limited. In this study participants were recruited from two grade levels (prep/grade 1, "N" = 210; grade 3, "N" = 149), and were allocated to a music…