This site takes you through the process of building a major scale, the essential building block of all key signatures and music. Audio examples of major scales are included with visual examples of how to build a scale. Very useful for beginning instrumental and vocal students.
Material Type: Interactive, Lesson, Student Guide
This article provides young musicians with valuable infomation on how to deal with performance anxiety before a performance.
Material Type: Lesson, Reading, Reference Material
Students will gain an understanding of meter by experiencing accented and unaccented beats. This free lesson plan is designed to fulfill Standard #5 of the National Standards for Music Education: Reading and notating music.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
‘Embolada” is a form of poetry and song that has set refrains. The refrains allow singers to organize their next improvised stanza in their heads—even as the music is sounding. (McGowan,1991) This form of traditional music is active in the northeastern region of Brazil. Embolada has a fast rhythm and complex tone that deftly incorporate varied lyrics and onomatopoeia. Embolada is mostly improvised following a dialogue by the “Embolador”, who sings while hitting the Pandeiro at short intervals in between verses. The singer needs considerable skill, experience, and a sense of humor . Embolada is sung in the streets; it is influenced by American rap music and African music. Using the Embolada rhythm, students can improvise lyrics and sing solo.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students examine and listen to a variety of forms of music to learn about the cultural, geographic, and stylistic diversity available within the United States.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
The students will create with the teacher body percussion to Frederic Chopin - Mysterious Forest and Tchaikovsky - The Forest Of Fir Trees In Winter. They will chose their own piece of music and create own movements.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This article is a supplement to the primary lesson from the New York Times lessons.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This is the PowerPoint and lesson plan associated with the lesson 8 Tribes, 1 State.
Material Type: Presentation
The Art of Illumination project is a great way for students in grades 5-12 to experience the medieval process of illumination as authentically as possible. After researching the history, people, and art of the Medieval Ages, students will have the opportunity to create an illuminated text of their own.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This article contains a collection of beautiful sketchbook pages to help students studying a range of high school Art qualifications, including GCSE, A Level and IB Visual Art. The collection includes sketchbooks completed by students as well as artist sketchbooks. Pages have been selected to demonstrate different sketchbook presentation techniques as well as to indicate the variety of layout styles possible. Descriptions underneath each image provide tips and guidance, outlining the successful aspects of each page.
Material Type: Reading
Students will consider the choices artists make when creating works of art that include people. They will consider style, medium, background, color, technique, and composition; compare images of women as represented by different artists; learn about where artists get their sources and inspiration.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students will consider the ways that artists respond to political and social events and ideas; think about sources of inspiration; learn about symbols and think about what they represent.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students will consider the choices artists make with regard to painting, focusing on color, shape, composition, proportion, balance, style, and scale; learn how to discuss and compare nonrepresentational works of art; think about their relationship as a viewer to works of art and will consider how an abstract work can evoke a sense of atmosphere or place.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students are introduced to the life and art of Andy Warhol as a way of considering photography as a self-portrait medium. After viewing and discussing other artists' photographic self-portraits, students create their own digitally manipulated photographic self-portrait and then write a poem to describe the point of view taken in their digital work of art. Through links included in the resource, students view more of Andy Warhol's self-portraits at The Warhol museum, take a photo with a virtual camera and experiment with editing tools in NGAkids Photo Op, and listen to the brief podcast “In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students will consider gesture in drawings; consider alternative materials and processes artists can use to create drawings; consider the role of chance in the creation of drawings.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This resource aims to: engage teachers and students in acquiring authentic and culturally respectful information; build factual knowledge about art, history, religion, cultural traditions, the role of the artist and the use of materials and techniques; support teachers and students in developing skills in intercultural understanding; and develop Asia literacy, the understanding and valuing of the wealth of artistic and cultural traditions of Asia, and the links we share across countries and cultures.
Material Type: Unit of Study
Students can learn about how people with a Hispanic background have been represented on stamps over the history of the United States. This is a resource from the Smithsonian Postal Museum and it addresses the culture of the United States.
In this lesson, students explore the artwork of Georges Seurat and create a masterpiece.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
