Each lesson below was written by an elementary teacher from the Los Angeles area. Developed through the Getty Education Department's one-year professional-development program, Art & Language Arts, these lessons were designed to meet California content standards for English-language arts and visual arts.

For more information about the program, please e-mail teacherprograms@getty.edu.

Lessons 11–20 of 27

Puzzle Mystery
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Your students will have fun trying to solve a mystery in this lesson. Students are given a small detail of a painting, which they sketch and then give a title. Students shares their titles and try to determine the theme and subject of the full painting based on these clues. At the end of class the students put their details together like a puzzle to create a class reproduction of the painting.

Story Books
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students will discuss a narrative work of art in order to interpret and understand the theme from the Open Court unit on "Risks and Consequences." Students imagine the events occurring before and after a narrative scene, sketch their ideas, then write a story describing the action and publish their story and illustrations in a book. The works of art and sketches provide a focus to practice writing three-part stories with dialogue and using adjectives and prepositions.

I Spy (Camouflaged Animals in Art!)
Grades/Level: Lower Elementary (K–2)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, Science
Lesson Overview: Students discuss how the environment influences animal characteristics by looking at Hans Hoffmann's painting A Hare In the Forest. After the discussion, students research an animal that uses camouflage, paint that animal within its environment, and write a sentence describing its habitat. Students use this as a basis on which to write a sequential narrative about their animal and its relationship to its environment. This lesson is an extension to the Open Court Reader second grade unit on animal camouflage called "Look Again."

Create an Illuminated Alphabet Word Book
Grades/Level: Lower Elementary (K–2)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students create a class alphabet book or "ABCDarium," a book that uses images of animals or objects to illustrate each letter of the alphabet. The book is in the style of a medieval illuminated manuscript and incorporates both art and writing. Students decorate large uppercase letters of the alphabet and draw an original picture to illustrate each letter.

Are You Sleeping?
Grades/Level: Lower Elementary (K–2)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, Mathematics
Lesson Overview: Students participate in a measurement lesson focusing on length. They use their feet as the unit of measurement for furniture in the classroom and at home. They then sketch the pieces of furniture they measured.

Buildings, Buildings Everywhere
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students gain awareness of shapes in architecture by creating a painting of their school and writing a reflective summary of their study of architecture.

Postcards from the Wilderness
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students create a postcard featuring a landscape that incorporates rubbings to create texture. Students write a letter on the back of the postcard describing the landscape.

Funky Illuminated Fairy Tales
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students create a nameplate and an original fairy tale book using an illuminated manuscript format.

Letter from the Chateau
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: Students write a friendly letter based on their observations of a painting by Poussin. They demonstrate their observation of the painting's content and new vocabulary that they access themselves, using a thesaurus.

Dream Bed
Grades/Level: Upper Elementary (3–5)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts
Lesson Overview: After viewing and discussing two beds in the Getty's collection, students design and write descriptions of imaginary beds. Students will understand that everyday objects can be works of art, and that artists can design functional items that reflect their ideals of beauty.

Lessons 11–20 of 27