Search Unit Plans
Grade: 7
Duration: Over the course of a month
Summary: Students interview either an older relative or an elder in the community to develop an understanding of local, national or world history. Students create a digital biography about the person they interviewed. From the historical time period of the digital biography, students employ elements of fiction and the elements of the graphic novel to also create their own graphic short story about an historical event.
Grade: 5
Duration: ongoing, semester
Summary: Telling a story through poetry/narrative and deepening the story through images.
Grade: 7
Duration: 4 weeks
Summary: Students will understand that Lake Superior, their home, has great stories to learn and to experience. From research and understanding of the purpose of story they wrote a claims-support-conclusion paragraph and retold a shipwreck event from the perspective of a person aboard the ship. Math skills were used for creating an informational map to support the story. Each student bound their pages using a “stab-bound” method of bookmaking and contributed to a classroom anthology of their writing.
Grade: 2
Duration: Over the course of 4 weeks
Summary: Students will identify the resources that plants need to live. Through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) investigation, students will be able to describe the different ways in which plants fulfill their needs. In art, students learn how to be able to describe a plant visually. Using their learning about plants students integrate learning to create informative signage for a community garden the students designed and planted.
Grade: 10
Duration: Over the course of a month
Summary: Geometry is a universal tool for detecting and understanding relationships in nature. Students find and photograph underlying geometric properties found in nature. Using the photographs, students sequence their photographs into a presentation documenting the geometric properties and the relationships (parts to whole) found in organic structures in nature.
Duration: Two weeks
Summary: Students integrate science learning about solids and liquids and how ice is formed to create ice sculptures that incorporate found objects and the elements of art.
Grade: 6
Duration: Over the course of a month
Summary: The 6th graders read a historical fiction book called A Nest for Celeste. The historical portions of the book focus on the life and work of John James Audubon. A Nest for Celeste is a unique chapter book. It has illustrations on nearly every page. This unique and beautiful book created opportunities for students to “read” the illustrations, compare and contrast the illustrations with the text, make predictions about the storyline, and experience how artwork can enhance our understanding of the written word. Drawing on inspiration from the book students wrote an argumentative essay about...
Grade: 3
Duration: Over the course of a month
Summary: This unit will teach students about communicating respectfully and how to show respect when providing feedback to a peer. Students will create a musical composition that reflects their feelings about respect and tolerance. Students will also write about what they have learned about respect and tolerance. As a culminating activity, teachers will combine their writing and musical composition into a digital story illustrated with work generated in the visual art classroom about the theme of respect and tolerance.