Each student writes a one paragraph summary of a chapter of a book and then illustrates their chapter. It can be used for a book the whole class is reading so then all of the summaries are collected and bound together to create a “summary book” of the book read. This activity can be used for both fiction and non-fiction books in any subject and any grade, although this activity is linked to upper primary SOLs. This activity assesses reading comprehension and practices all writing skills. It also includes Art SOLs, and if you have students create their final products on the computer, then you would be incorporating the Computer Technology SOLs as well. If it is used for a non-fiction text in a different content class, then the activity would also cover those SOLs. It can be used for EL classes in middle school also. 

In this activity, you will design a device that will substantially impact our environment. You can write words around your device’s image to help explain your ideas. This device does not have to be realistic. See the example of how to draw a device prototype below. An example of an approach could be to create a sizable water Roomba-like device that cleans the top of a body of water and burns the trash collected. This process turns the trash into oxygen.

Ask the Artist. Facilitated by the teacher, students can collaborate on developing an online form to be shared alongside works of art being displayed.

Digital Mood Board. Students can create a digital “mood board” of ideas and inspirations for personal works of art based on a common theme or idea.

Students will learn about cartoonists Charles Schulz and Jackie Ormes, and the correlation between their comics and current events of their time. Inspired by their work, students will create their own comic strips to share their perspectives on a current event they feel a personal connection with or that they have interest in.

This unit of study allows for students to gain understanding and confidence in figure drawing over a series of 3 separate lessons that result in a collaborative mural. These lessons can be used to facilitate an assessment of student growth and skills development, while still encouraging expression through different types of art explorations and working both individually and collaboratively.

During this lesson, students will work in teams to plan, construct, and test a functional miniature golf sculpture while they explore topics related to collaboration, design thinking, and peer critique. A focus on specific art production skills such as armature building and rendering objects using paper mâché will be explored. The finished artwork will be peer reviewed for creativity, craftsmanship, and challenge. 

Students will learn about historical and contemporary design, as well as three-dimensional properties while creating their own miniature artist studio replica. Students will use the creative process while utilizing three-dimensional techniques to create installations based on their own research and investigation of an artist of choice. Students will present their final product to their peers and craft an artist statement to reflect on their learning.  

Fifth grade students will learn that artist’s books are a medium that artists can use to express ideas. Students will first practice paper folding/ building techniques and the concept of foreground, middle ground, and background. Then, students will create tunnel books to showcase an original fantasy landscape. 

 Today, you want to discuss how artists can help bring awareness of environmental changes through art. Introduce a few artists that use environmental change as their theme. It is a good idea to have several artists that use different kinds of mediums. Examples: Nils-Udo, Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Shilling, Agnes Denes, Chris Jordan, Benjamin Von Wong, Olafur Eliasson, Amanda Schachter, Rachel Sussman, and Mathilde Roussel. These are some environmental artists of different backgrounds and diversity that work in different medians.  Discuss how posters have been used to educate others on environmental changes. Show your teacher’s example of an educational and artistic environmental poster. Talk about your poster and the environmental concept that you chose as an example of not only the artwork but on a presentation as well.

This lesson sequence offers students and teachers a way to explore their individual identities and sense of belonging through analyzing children’s literature and coding with Scratch. Through read-aloud activities and self-differentiated Scratch projects, students learn about the value of inclusion and explore and express ideas about their personal and social identities. Students will describe environments supportive of diversity, and reflect on their own identity as they create expressive projects about their sense of belonging. This sequence is made up of four lessons, though your students may need additional class time to work on their projects.This lesson sequence is part of CodeVA's committment to the U.S. Department of Education "YOU Belong in STEM" initiative.

      Using the picture book The True Story of the Three Pigs by A. Wolf  as told to Jon Scieska, students will complete math word problems that cover the measurement SOLs. They will also write their own “true story” of another fairy tale, which covers the English writing SOLs. An extension of this unit could be to have students create math word problems based on their new story and have their classmates solve them. This lesson can also be used as an art activity if the story is illustrated. If technology is available, it can be an opportunity for students to practice their computer skills to create a final version of their new illustrated fairy tale or to use the computer to illustrate it.  

In this short video (2:35), a Virginia art teacher shares a strategy for teaching creative thinking by enabling students to express personal ideas, images, and themes through artistic choices of media, techniques, and subject matter.