Shape and Line Remix

For Grades 3–8

Visual Arts

Inspired by Sol LeWitt
Students will understand how an idea can be a creative starting point, understand how geometry can be a creative starting point, and create Sol LeWitt–inspired sculptures.

Taking an Impression

For Grades 3–12

Visual Arts

Featuring Claude Monet’s Chemin de halage à Argenteuil (Tow-Path at Argenteuil), ca. 1875
Claude Monet was an Impressionist living in France in the late 1800s who wanted to capture the light and atmosphere of a specific moment in time, often in landscapes. Impressionists painted outdoors often and used new methods of mixing colors based on the scientific concept of optical mixing being written about at the time. This lesson plan explores optical mixing, painting the same subject under different conditions of light, and the short choppy brushstrokes used by the Impressionists.

The World Around Us

For Grades 3–12

Social Studies; Visual Arts

Featuring Robert Delaunay's Soleil, Tour, Aéroplane (Sun Tower, Airplane), 1913
Sun, Tower, Airplane reflects Robert Delaunay’s enthusiasm for the technological developments of the time in which he lived. He reveled in the new, modern world, and celebrated it in his art. This lesson plan, written to be adapted for a variety of grade levels, will introduce your students to three significant technological feats of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and start them thinking about things in their own world that could change society forever.

Three Ways to Make a Scene

For Grades 4–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring André Derain's The Trees, ca. 1906; Stuart Davis's New York Waterfront, 1938; and Giorgio de Chirico's The Anguish of Departure, 1913–14
Students will analyze landscapes by three artists. After learning about the horizon line, they will create their own painted and collaged landscapes inspired by one of the artists.

Translating Art to Music

For Grades 3–8

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; Music; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Sonia Delaunay's Colored Rhythm, 1958

Students will use Sonia Delaunay’s painting Colored Rhythm to explore musical concepts and as the source of information and inspiration for creating an original musical composition. An optional activity in which students create a fashion design is also included.

Traveling Abroad

For Grades 6–12, with adaptations for Grades 3–5

Social Studies; Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Eugéne Delacroix’s Street in Meknes, 1832
This lesson plan explores differences between today’s culture and the cultures of both France and North Africa in the 1830s. The exercises include role-playing, writing, discussion, and making art.

Visual Poetry: Mobiles and Stabiles

For Grades K–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; Mathematics; Science; Technology; Mathematical Practice

Featuring Alexander Calder's The Cone, 1960

Alexander Calder invented two new kinds of sculpture: mobiles and stabiles. In The Cone, he combines elements of each—a stabile, or non-moving sculpture, connected to a mobile, or moving sculpture. In earlier moving sculptures he used motors, but in later sculptures he used only natural air currents and balance to create movement. In this lesson, students use their powers of observation and knowledge of mathematical practice and scientific inquiry to discover how the sculpture moves and balances, and then imaginatively express what they have observed through writing poetry.

What’s Fair? Can You Decide?

For Grades 3–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; Music; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

This lesson plan explores different methods of portraiture used by contemporary photographers and examines the issues of sampling and copyright in both music and art.

Wide Awake Dreaming

For Grades 3–5

Social Studies; Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; Mathematics; Science; Technology; Theater; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language; Mathematical Practice

Featuring Joan Miró's Carnaval d'Arlequin (Carnival of Harlequin), 1924–25
This lesson plan explores how Joan Miró, a Surrealist artist, used dreams and the unconscious to create his whimsical, playful painting known as Carnival of Harlequin. It includes hands-on activities and discussion to encourage students to create their own imaginary creatures.

Wired In!

For Grades 9–12

Visual Arts

Inspired by Sol LeWitt
Students will learn about Sol LeWitt, learn how to make a work of Conceptual art, and synthesize learning in a presentation to the class describing what they did and why it is Conceptual art.