The Arts in Middle School
Connect creative middle school students with the wide world of the arts, including music, painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, drama, theatre and more. You'll find ideas for both stand-alone arts classroom instruction as well as push-in lessons designed to help the middle school teacher incorporate the arts into a variety of standardized subjects. You will also find some interesting and lively discussion about the continued decline of the arts in some sixth, seventh and eighth grade classrooms due to budgetary restraints and a focus on standardized assessments.
Most Recent
- Art Lesson: History Day Shadow Paintings
Make a creative memory from your class history day with shadow paintings! - Quick Draw Art Lesson: What to Leave in, What to Leave out
Wow! That reference photo has a lot of stuff in it…how do you turn it into a drawing or painting? - Art Lesson: Color Vs. Value
Let your students explore the difference between emphasizing color or contrasting lights and darks! - Art Lesson: Exploring Color, Mood, and Music
Let your students experiment with the relationship between color and mood by painting to music. - Watercolor Winter Wonderland: Art Class Project
This watercolor painting lesson will teach how to create a winter landscape using simple watercolor techniques. It is for grades 1 to 8 and can be adapted to the older grades by creating more difficult trees on the landscape. Students will find this watercolor painting lesson easy and fun to do. - Cackles, Creaks, Moans and Groans: Musical Stories for Halloween Fun
Halloween is almost here! These entertaining Halloween books can be used in the elementary music classroom as well as the general classroom. My kids love reading these stories with me as they perform the actions and/or sound effects while learning concepts of sequencing, counting, and listening. - Worksheet and Quiz on Color Theory
Learn what's meaningful when studying colors. This light color theory worksheet and quiz on color theory will arm your students with valuable information to make appropriate painting decisions that will lead to better pictures. - Engaging Your Students Using Art: Teacher Creatures
Looking for an engaging design lesson to use in your science, social, math, or art lesson? This creature creation will allow students to design a creature name tag from words they will be exposed to throughout your lesson or your classroom while learning to be creative, have fun and produce art. - Harmony and Perception Using Color Theory
Learn how to get your students to think differently about painting. These color theory lessons will enable your students to process how harmony is achieved with color, solve color harmony problems, and feel comfortable about their ability to paint a piece they can be proud of.
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