Learning Activities

Students will learn how to assemble a theatrical platform. Students will learn the names of all pieces that comprise a platform, they will learn how to arrive at their measurements for all pieces, practice cutting the pieces, assemble all pieces together with predrills, impact drills, screws, and glue. At the end of the activity, students should understand all parts (rails, stiles, toggles, and skin) of the platform and also how to build it from the ground up. Although this activity is very similar to "How to Build a Hollywood Flat", platforms and flats are used for different purposes and different lumber is used for each.

The digital tool provides examples of platform and lumber used on pages 9, 11, and 13.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

The teacher will introduce students to the word syllable and demonstrate to students how to count syllables in words using the digital tool. Next, the teacher will read a haiku poem to students and have the students count the syllables in the haiku using the strategy demonstrated in the video clip. Lastly, the teacher and students will read a variety of haiku poems, with the teacher encouraging the students to identify the syllable pattern in each poem using non-locomotor movements. The students will use mental math to calculate the number of syllables present in each line of a haiku poem and describe how this pattern supplies rhythm in a haiku. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

In this learning activity, the students will write a simple poem about a fish.  They will use their creativity to design a fish drawing.  They will combine their drawing and poem into an animated movie using the Fishypaint app.  

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will use critical and creative thinking to generate many, varied, and unusual ideas for a media arts product through synthesis, using personal experience and/or the work of others.

This is the second activity in a series of four to meet Media Arts Standard 5.1:

Using Productive Thinking in Media Arts

Identifying and Choosing a Message in Media Arts

Cracking the Secret Code in Media Arts

Storyboarding in Media Arts

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will demonstrate knowledge of the names of the notes on the treble staff by using barred instruments to play skipped notes up and down the instruments. Connecting the letter names of the notes to the instruments helps students understand how line and space notes skip when moving line to line and space to space. This further reinforces their understanding of how notes are arranged on the staff.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will review the parts of an animal cell using the "Anatomy of an Animal Cell" webpage, and will then use their knowledge of animal cells to create a three-dimensional model of an animal cell.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will respond to a work of art by writing a narrative. Teachers will need a way to display the work of art to the entire class--either through digital resources or a printed version. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will demonstrate their knowledge of animals with bioluminescent characteristics by collaboratively creating a sea animal out of glow in the dark slime. Students will then display their sea animal for the class and explain why their animal uses bioluminescence to survive.  

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity serves as an introduction to the study of melody at the novice level of ensemble participation. In this activity, the student will begin to explore melody. They will learn to aurally differentiate between high and low pitches, identify melodic motion by step and skip (intervals), and represent melodic contour using simple graphic representations.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This drama activity uses collaboration and explores movement, sequencing, and vocalization. The students will need to contribute ideas as they create and simulate a machine.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will analyze visual art from Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series using the digital resource and make connections to The Great Migration of the 1920s. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will play Simon Says to practice their knowledge of the nine general stage directions in Theatre. With this activity, students will become proficient in learning the areas of the stage.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will read Kay Haring's picture book, Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing. Students will answer questions from the text. Students will identify break dancing as his inspiration. The students will watch a few minutes of a Break Dancing video from YouTube. They will draw their own dancing figure using motion lines to illustrate movement. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Open scenes are great ways to get kids on their feet and acting. Open scenes are open to interpretation and should be purposely vague or ambiguous. The purpose of having kids write and later perform these short scenes is to get them on stage, help them start interpreting lines and trying to attempt to understand and play the subtext in dialogue. The scenes are short (16-24 lines) and can be memorized easily. The digital tool provided will show students an example of an open scene.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will learn to expand their creative thinking and generate original ideas as a media artist. They will draw on their personal knowledge to generate many, varied, and unusual ideas, activating metacognition to increase productive thinking.

This activity is the first of four to meet Media Arts Standard 5.1:

Using Productive Thinking in Media Arts

Identifying and Choosing a Message in Media Arts

Cracking the Secret Code in Media Arts

Storyboarding in Media Arts

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will create audio recordings of short poems and will select movements to express the ideas and descriptions included in the poems.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity is designed to be presented after the activity Dancing to Haikus-Part 1: Counting Syllables. In this activity, the teacher will introduce pairing a haiku poem with locomotor movements, such as jumping, twirling, and skipping. The students will develop ideas to connect locomotor movements with prompting from a haiku poem. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students explore what makes a character interesting through the examination of physical objects. What do objects say about us? What assumptions do we make about people based on what they carry with them?  Students will explore the items in a bag you have created that has been left in your classroom. The students will infer what type of person the bag belongs to based on the objects found inside. The class will work together to create a personal history for this character. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Props tables are used backstage during productions of any scale. A props table is where the props for any theatrical production will live during the rehearsal and production run. This learning activity will help your students understand how the props should be organized and labeled on the prop table. The digital tool will provide information about a prop table. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

In this activity, students will sequence the life cycle of a plant. After reading the story students will work in small groups to put the life cycle in order using sequence cards and then add movement to their life cycle. 

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

The students develop a pencil drawing of a pair of shoes using traditional methods.

This learning activity was created as a result of the Visual Arts COS Resource Summit.

Students will hear, practice, and demonstrate four types of voices: singing, speaking, whispering, and shouting.  The students will also learn appropriate ways to use each voice in real-world situations.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will practice consonant pronunciation and apply the technique to the performance of a poem.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity builds upon the Introduction to Melody activity and is intended for students at the novice level of ensemble participation. In this activity, students will develop their melodic listening skills and learn to transcribe melodies into graphic representations. It builds and reinforces their knowledge of pitch, step and skip intervals, and melodic contour.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will each research a different aspect of a specific tribe of Native Americans and combine their ideas to create a work of art/design. 

Students will work in groups to brainstorm, research, and plan a mural to represent the culture of a specific tribe of Native Americans.  

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity is designed to be presented after the activities Dancing to Haikus-Part 1: Counting Syllables and Dancing to Haikus-Part 2: Dance Party.

Students will brainstorm ways to publicly display artwork related to haiku poems, then create a visual art piece to illustrate the words of a haiku poem. Next, students will explore methods to prepare their artwork for presentation, such as backing with a durable material and adding a nameplate. After preparing their haiku artwork for presentation, students will display their art in a central school location for other students to view.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will compare like and unlike musical phrases using the online Comparing Game. The game gives two balloons that when clicked play a musical phrase. Students must click whether the two phrases are the same or different. The game progresses until students reach 100%.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

After they have learned about the various cultures present in their local communities, students will gain first-hand knowledge and experience of the celebration of Lunar (Chinese) New Year by participating in a Dragon Dance and then comparing/contrasting it to celebrations in their own cultures.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity is designed to assess whether students are able to read the pitches on the treble clef staff. The digital resource contains games that students can play to give you the opportunity to observe their ability to read the pitches. You will also be able to assess students' ability to play the notes they are reading on an ORFF instrument.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Analyzing a commercial for a high-interest product, students will identify the elements and principles of design used to convey the message and ideal of a company through a digital collaborative space. Students will generate many, varied, and unusual ways to communicate their own message, matching the company's ideals, through a different use of elements and principles of design.

This is the third activity in a series of four to meet Media Arts Standard 5.1:

Using Productive Thinking in Media Arts
Identifying and Choosing a Message in Media Arts
Cracking the Code in Media Arts
Storyboarding in Media Arts

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will learn how to analyze a script, create a prop list based on script needs, break down the prop list into props that we have, or will borrow, build, or buy. The digital tool will provide an example of a prop list.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity moves the student past the recognition of melodic characteristics and toward the composition of melodies. In this activity, the student will use graphic representations to generate and draft a simple melodic idea and then transfer that idea into traditional music notation.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will use an online storyboard program to plan a commercial for a high-interest product, drawing on personal experience and the work of others, that communicates a student-selected message. This message will communicate the identified ideals of the company and will have re-imagined the elements and principles of design from an already existing commercial for that product.

This is the fourth activity in a series of four to meet Media Arts Standard 5.1:

Using Productive Thinking in Media Arts
Identifying and Choosing a Message in Media Arts
Cracking the Code in Media Arts
Storyboarding in Media Arts

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will compose a song in rondo form. They will collaborate with a group of peers in the creating of the song. They will then perform the song for their class.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Memorization of lines is the FIRST step to learning how to act on the stage.  This memorization exercise is a surefire way to help kids learn their lines, even if they doubt you. This technique will work for monologues, scenes or full length plays; any acting exercise that requires memorization.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.