In this article, the author describes a class project wherein preschoolers gained an enriched experience learning art history through engaging in various activities: (1) listening to a storybook; (2) viewing images; (3) doing movement; and (4) producing a masterpiece. The author describes how the children painted their interpretation of Mona Lisa…

The world of fine arts can seem a bit intimidating to a student, and it is part of the teacher's role to help ease students into that world. One of this author's goals as an art and design educator is to bring the world of his students into classroom projects, providing a sense of comfort and familiarity in the context of learning something new.…

Digital storytelling is the art of using digital content--still images, video clips, voiceovers, sound effects and music--to create short and compelling narrative movies. As an expressive medium in the art classroom, digital storytelling can be used to integrate subject matter knowledge and skills from many years of the school curriculum. If one…

This article introduces a new "perspective" on the typical landscape painting. It is an opportunity for art students to study the local ecosystem and native trees in their community. Other aspects of this assignment are the study of Symbolism and a new focus on the natural designs created by exposed tree roots. (Contains 1 web link.)

In this article, the author shares an activity she introduced to her students. In this activity, students recognize the beauty of their own neighborhood and learn about cropping a photo for better composition. (Contains 1 online resource.)

Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas in Peru, was recently voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Also in Peru are the mysterious Nazca Lines--a humming bird, a spider, and trapezoids--which are etched in the desert so large they can only be seen from an airplane. The author experienced some of these places recently when he and his…

Teens have issues! They talk about suicide and war. They experiment with drugs, drinking and smoking. Their lives may have been touched by abuse, gangs, or guns. Young people worry about these issues and many others as they work out their emerging identities and race toward their futures. This article discusses how the teachers in Voyager House…

Art teachers are renowned for their claims that the creative properties of their senior secondary pupils' artworks occur as a result of the realisation of a creative process. Drawing on my recent ethnographic studies in senior art classrooms in Sydney, Australia, and Illinois, USA, I uncover a sociological, rather than a psychological explanation…

From 1899 until his death in 1926, Claude Monet painted a series of watercolor landscapes of his water lily garden and Japanese bridge in Giverny, France. Monet eventually abandoned the banks entirely as subject matter and concentrated solely on the water. These paintings, particularly "The Water Lilies," show a surface in which the shimmering…

Every year, the Parent-Teacher Association of Ferndale Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia sponsors a fun road race for the students, teachers, families, and community. This annual event has inspired the author to develop the Running and Art project to show off her students' art and squeeze in a little art history, too. In this article, the…

One of the most familiar ways of creating value in a drawing is with a pencil, but after having admired the ballpoint pen doodles of many of her high school art students, the author thought it would interest them to seriously pursue it as a new medium. The author was also inspired by the work of artist Steve Assel, whose figurative ballpoint pen…

In this article, the author, an art teacher, describes how third- and fourth-graders in her art club made three-dimensional sculptural masks as their project. Students in this art club are usually kids that excel in the arts, or simply have the desire to learn more about the arts. Their projects are usually permanent to the school and become part…

The author had just begun Ann Johnson's "Friendship Fence" lesson from the February 2007 issue of "SchoolArts" with her third graders. In this lesson, students created self-portraits on individual fence pickets that were then combined to make a fence. In this article, the author describes how this idea was applied to the wall…

During each of the holiday seasons, the author tries to come up with a lesson that will incorporate art history and have a holiday theme. One recent winter-holiday season, the author was thumbing through a catalog and saw a picture of note cards that had famous artists' stockings hanging on a mantel. This triggered an idea for the author's…

"Armadillo Ray," by John Beifuss, is the tale of a young, curious armadillo who wants to know what the moon is. He is joined in his quest by snakes, prairie dogs, sage grouse, and owls. The beauty of the book is its simplicity, illustrations and landscapes, and its potential links to reading, geography, science, and mathematics. In this…