Strategies for choosing themes for theme teaching include limiting subject areas, integrating skills, balancing teacher- and student-generated themes, avoiding cutsey activities, drawing from various arenas, avoiding overly long themes, avoiding yearlong or schoolwide themes, understanding the themes, repeating themes, and borrowing themes from…

This special section describes one elementary school's Art and Artists theme, which allows students to study art across the curriculum. Various types of projects are described, including a classroom art museum, self-portrait painting, writing about art, scientific drawing, and a study of shapes. A pullout presents examples of student work. (SM)

A Chapter 1 school motivated students using technology and the arts. A partnership with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts helped students develop cognitive and creative skills while working in concrete ways. Using computers, each class chose an artist, developed a class museum, and exhibited at the student-staffed museum. (SM)

Presents a cross-curricular theme unit on colors that includes a pullout poster and a resource list. Social studies activities highlight flags of the world. Science activities teach about colors of animals and the science of color. Language arts activities describe colorful language. Mathematics activities involve sorting and graphing colors. (SM)