619.677.0751 Projects are co-designed by artist-teacher teams to meet the needs of individual classes.
The following projects demonstrate the power of art to make learning meaningful and engaging. Lesson plans are meant to serve as guides rather than comprehensive instructions. We hope that you find these projects inspiring. Adapt, modify or simplify these projects to best support your students in becoming active participants in their own learning.
Diversity and Fragility—Dances from the Living World
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are the focus for this embodied life science learning journey combining core ideas and science practices with a rich diversity of dance-making activities. Using dance
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Dramatizing Slow and Rapid Changes to Our World
How does erosion and weathering affect our earth’s surface? What events in nature can change our landforms quickly? These are the questions that inspire students to investigate the effects of
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Scripting Stories about Animals and Habitats
Can animals adapt and thrive in different habitats over time? Drawing from life science, second-grade students compare the diversity of life in different habitats, comparing and contrasting characteristics of living
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Scientific Artists’ Books
In creating scientific artists’ books, fifth-grade students become keen researchers, thinkers, and analysts. Applying scientific observation to their illustrations and text, students investigate an array of topics from across the
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Interactive Earth Science Books
Second-grade students address NGSS standards pertaining to earth science by creating interactive science books. The books incorporate a variety of visual arts techniques and elaborate on the class study of
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Disaster Town
Kindergartners deepen their understanding of push, pull, and change of direction through building their own towns and navigating various disasters that strike their imaginary inhabitants. Students gain working knowledge of
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Light and Sound Waves Produced through Shadow Plays
Students participate in activities that illustrate their research into the phenomena of how light interacts with objects by traveling from place to place and how sound vibrates and travels through
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How to Build Your Own Country
Inspired by Valerie Wyatt’s How to Build Your Own Country, Grade 2 teacher Elaine Pompa was interested in having her students engage in artful activities to complement Social Studies lessons
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Garden, Insects, and Birds, Oh My!
A garden can be a meditative, calming space. The use of a garden theme allows students to understand nature from the ground upward. From topics that range from the dirt
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Matter All around (and within) Us
Students embark on an embodied learning journey through their NGSS Physical Science unit. Applying a range of improvisation and choreographic techniques, students create dances about their investigations into particles of matter,
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Investigating Mechanical Energy with Creative Commercials
Exploring the properties of mechanical energy and its forms (force, position and motion, ability to do work, potential and kinetic energy), students work together to compose song lyrics and theatrical
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Scientific Observation through Literature
Learning by direct observation and investigation, students create science journals. The journals are extended and revised to connect to the fable ”The Tortoise and the Hare.” Students’ individual storybooks are
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Exploring Life Cycles
Second-grade students at Flying Hills create short plays about a variety of natural life cycles. These include performances pertaining to the life cycles of frogs, butterflies, and/or plants. The final
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Immigration Nation- Hope and Hardship Dance Theatre
Fifth graders weave together social studies, history, and English language arts to create a dance piece entitled ”Immigration Nation.” Over the course of this project, students practice the art of
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Anti-Bully Campaign
In looking at the pivotal theme of injustice within the literary story Matilda, by Roald Dahl, students identify various forms of mistreatment they witness at school and home. Through much
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Art, Orbits and Emotion
First graders learning about character traits and feelings as part of their ELA curriculum. They use line and color qualities to represent feelings/emotions evoked by musical tracks played in the
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Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Artists’ Books
Through in-depth class discussions and independent construction, students embark on the hero’s journey as they create artists’ books based on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick
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Depicting the Sun, Moon, and Stars
First-grade students combine visual arts projects with creative movement and narration to depict patterns of the sun, moon, and stars. Students complete sketches, drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the sun,
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Ratios: Math + Art
“Math is a language through which we tell specific stories about the world.” Sixth-grade students use visual artwork to represent math concepts. Students learn to recognize math not only in
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Close Observations of Rocks and Minerals in the Geology Lab
Students become amateur geologists as they transform their classroom into a geology laboratory. They examine and evaluate specimens of rocks, minerals, and fossils from the Natural History Museum. Students explore
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