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.

Middle School Summer Art Project: Mixed Media Fruit and Vegetable Painting

Create bright works of art to hang in the kitchen at home.

Creating Thank You Cards Using Past Projects: Middle School Art Lesson

Students can recycle their old paintings into beautiful cards to show their appreciation of others at the end of the school year.

Create a whimsical spring collage featuring birds and eggs!

Fun February Art Project for Middle School: Create an Art Nouveau Valentine

Teach students about the beauty of the Art Nouveau movement by letting them explore their creative side with Valentines.

Paint a Winter Scene Using a Monochromatic Color Scheme: Fun Middle School Art Lesson!

Teach your students how to harness the power of a simple, limited color palette to enhance a seasonal subject.

Create a Print-Style Mixed Media Painting for the Winter Season: A Middle School Art Lesson

Allow students to explore the creativity with a mixed media piece that has the look and feel of a collage print.

Create a Pumpkin Patch Pastel Painting: Middle School Seasonal Art Lesson

Introduce your students to the beauty of painting with warm lights and cool shadows! This art lesson is appropriate for middle or high school students.

Create a Fall Painting with Complementary Colors

Teach students to use naturally complementary colors to create fall paintings.

Paint with your Senses: Middle School Impressionistic Watercolor Painting

Show your students the joy of using color to paint beyond what they see with their eyes! Students will experiment with watercolor and painting sounds and feelings with color.

Middle School Art Lesson: Still Life Paintings of Your History & Future

Get to know your students through still life painting! In this lesson, students will create a still life painting of objects that represent their past and their future hopes.