This lesson explores geometry and patterns in quilts. How have quiltmakers used geometry in patchwork quilts? How do shapes fit together to create new shapes and form patterns? What are some different ways of creating designs?

In this lesson plan, we will be learning about railroad transportation by taking a closer look at Locomotive Briar Cliff, a painting made around 1860 by W. L. Bresse, and connecting it with learning experiences to explore how a train works and transports people and materials.

The golden rectangle is a geometric concept found in many aspects of the natural world as well as in architecture, art, and popular culture. This lesson is designed to be part of a geometry curriculum discussing the mathematical and aesthetic qualities of basic shapes, and of their use in society and nature.

This lesson, although aligned with Career, Art, and Twenty-First Century standards, can be easily adapted for any core subject area.

Descriptive writing vividly portrays a person, place, or thing in such a way that the reader can visualize the topic and enter into the writer's experience. The best writing engages our five senses, and nothing provides as rich an opportunity for sensory engagement as art. This lesson is designed to help students recognize sensory details in works of art and incorporate these details into their writing.

While biographers and historians are guided by actual events, artists and writers can select those details that suit their purposes, specifically to develop character, tone, conflict, and theme.

In 1970, 20 million people celebrated the first Earth Day. At that time, only about a third of the nation’s streams were safe for fishing or swimming, and major cities across the U.S. were often hidden under clouds of smoke. Since then, the successes and challenges represented by Earth Day have centered on one question: Do we control Nature, or does Nature control us?

In this lesson, students will work in the opposite direction and use their skills in poetry to examine and interpret works of art.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Constantine tapestries represent thirteen iconic scenes from the life of the Roman Emperor Constantine (around 270–337 CE). Each tapestry is filled with detail and drama, and offers an opportunity to witness the ability of art to tell a story. This lesson, designed for a Language Arts classroom, grades 4–8, uses a structured poem (the diamante) to examine contrasting story elements in narrative art.

Though we may not actually be able to feel or hear the objects and scenes depicted in a painting, artists often invite us to use a variety of our senses when we explore a work of art, encouraging us to imagine the textures, smells, and even tastes of what is depicted.

Over the centuries, many different formulae have been created to describe the proportions of the human figure. To prepare for this lesson, ask students to bring in full-length magazine photos of people. Do people follow a "design pattern"? Is there a formula that can describe a how a human should appear?

While universities, most K-12 schools, and probably most people see a logical division of knowledge into the Arts and the Sciences, does this separation allow us to better understand our world – or does it get in the way of understanding? This lesson, designed for use in a science classroom but with clear applications to the humanities, examines and challenges the sometimes artificial lines we have drawn between the Arts and the Sciences.

In this lesson plan we will uncover medical history by comparing Thomas Eakins’s The Gross Clinic, begun in 1875—which shows Dr. Samuel Gross, a surgeon at Jefferson Medical School, operating on a young boy suffering from osteomyelitis—with images of modern-day surgery.

The Industrial Revolution was not fought between armies and governments—although there were periods of violence. From the late 1700s through th e early 1900s, every aspect of day-to-day life in Europe and the United States was affected by changes in industry, transportation, and manufacturing. People from this era were often shocked by what seemed to be constant changes in their lifestyles, influencing how they viewed the world around them. Writers often reflected on these changes and artists frequently incorporated industrial influences into their creations.

In preparing for annual state assessments, it is typical for schools to use past reading passages and writing prompts to help students practice the skills they will be tested on. Looking at, reading about, and writing about works of art can be used as a valuable supplement to these exercises, helping students practice their reading comprehension and writing skills.

Artists often invite us into their paintings so that we might imagine ourselves stepping inside the picture frame and experiencing it firsthand. Some painters take this invitation to another level by painting details with such precision that viewers are tricked into believing the objects, people, and setting are real. These highly realistic paintings, known as trompe l’oeil, provide an ideal opportunity for students to respond to art by assuming the roles and voices of the painted figures.

Symbols are all around us. They are a natural part of our language and of the objects of our culture. In fact, our ability to communicate would be limited without the use of symbols. A Symbol is a person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself. Symbols possess standard interpretations, which are generally accepted by a culture, and also personal interpretations, which vary from one person to the next. These interpretations allow us to use symbols to examine other cultures and other viewpoints.

Of the many connections between mathematics and art, none is stronger than the shared concept of symmetry. Mathematicians find symmetry pleasing in geometry, physicists find it pleasing in the study of motion, poets appreciate it in the play of words, and artists employ it in the creation of beauty.

The power of women is a common theme in art, and this lesson examines that theme using images from the National Endowment for the Humanities Picturing America image set as well as from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Each of the works in this lesson also promotes the social agenda of the artist. Students will see connections to social issues, and will see how the artist/photographer uses details to reveal inner strengths.

Armor is about protection – not to prevent the wearers from getting hit in battles or tournaments, but rather to let them take the hit – and survive. In addition to needing to be protective, armor also needed to let a knight move as freely as possible. This is as true about today’s armor, using composite materials and high-tech innovations, as it was true in the Renaissance. This lesson entices students to think critically about the decisions that lie behind the construction of armor from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century armor, including 21st Century Critical Thinking Skills of making judgments and decisions and using systems thinking.

Recent research has shown that we can build innovative thinkers by reinforcing a set of thinking tools or skills, including such skills as Observing, Abstracting, Pattern Recognition, Modeling, Transforming (among others).

This lesson plan is the second in a series that is focused on using art to enrich instruction in these critical skills. The research on which this information is based can be found in many sources, perhaps best summarized in the book Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein.

Recent research has shown that we can build innovative thinkers by reinforcing a set of thinking tools, including such skills as observing, imagining, pattern recognition, modeling, and transforming. As these skills can be taught, it makes sense that we can help students become the creative thinkers that we will need in the twenty-first century.

We constantly see patterns all around us, and our brains organize our experience of the world through the recognition of these patterns. Consider something as basic as a joke: tell a “knock-knock” joke to a partner. Tell a second one. The pattern becomes obvious. Now tell your partner that you have one more, but your partner should start. This time the joke is in the confusion that results when the pattern is disrupted. In fact, most jokes involve the expectation of some sort of pattern which is invariably broken to form the joke. Patterns not only help us make sense of the world, they allow us to form expectations and predict outcomes.

It's never too early to introduce children to art images and activities – as you can see as this portrait lesson allows pre-K children to connect with literacy through speaking and listening skills. Portraits and the activities which they suggest both introduce and reinforce early learning of cultural differences and lifestyles. Understanding Differences: Using Portraits to Explore Diversity connects art with a variety of Pre-K and Kindergarten PA and NJ academic standards.

Adapted and expanded from the 2011 Philadelphia Museum of Art teaching kit, Looking to Write, Writing to Look.

Using primary sources encourages the researcher to form his/her own conclusions, rather than relying on the conclusions expressed by others in secondary sources.