Visual Art Standards Themes and Corresponding Strategies

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Visual Art Standards Themes and Corresponding Strategies
Theme Strategies
Creative involvement and expression
  • Rotate materials in the art center so that children are exposed to a variety of media, techniques, and processes.
  • Involve children in conversation about materialsfor example, talking about how drawing with chalk produces results that are different from drawing with markers, or what happens if the side of a crayon is used rather than the point.
  • Include a florist as one of the classroom jobs; keep a selection of real or artificial flowers and greenery and a variety of interesting items on hand.
  • Create a file box with interesting pictures, photographs, and postcards that children can use for reference and that include images contributed by children and their families.
  • Display interesting items in the art area with a variety of shapes, textures, and colors.
  • Take “drawing walks” with clipboards and encourage children to draw what they see. (Always take clipboards/paper on field trips!)
  • Collect interesting natural items such as leaves, flowers, and seashells for collages.
  • Press flowers and leaves between sheets of waxed paper.
Performing and sharing
  • Ask children to describe what they are working on and transcribe their comments on the back or create a label with their words for three-dimensional work.
  • Ask about art children might see at homeon the wall or collected by their parents.
  • Make blank books with different topics such as animals, flowers, and birds and encourage children to contribute pages.
  • Regularly display childrens artwork in the classroom and hallways with labels that represent how the children describe their work.
  • Be on the lookout for picture frames at garage sales and use them for displays, so that children understand that their work is important.
  • Periodically involve the children in creating a mural or group sculpture that will promote group discussion and decision making.
Responding to the work of others
  • Look at artwork during group times and ask children to describe it, noting differences in the responses they provide.
  • Display original art or reproductions representative of the cultures of the children in the group and artists from the local region.
  • Invite a local artist to visit the classroom.
  • Visit an art museum, local gallery, or community festival where art will be on display.
  • Look at pictures of art from earlier periods in history.
  • Provide books and display examples of art from different cultures.
  • Display a piece of artwork with a poster (or sticky note for each child) that includes each childs comments about it.
Making connections with other areas of the arts and curriculum
  • Periodically, use opportunities to create artwork for a particular purpose, such as a school event, greeting cards, or “get well” cards.
  • Go on a walk and point out different ways art is displayed in the environment, such as murals, signs or advertising posters, artwork in an office, or a sculpture in a park.
  • Include examples of art in other interest areas, such as botanical prints in the science area, framed book jacket covers or posters in the book corner, an art print from the cubist period in the math center, etc.
  • Display examples of artworks that serve different purposes, such as a calendar, framed decorative print, wallpaper, printed fabrics, or CD covers.
  • Play music while children are engaged in the art center or encourage them to respond to music with different kinds of media.
  • Involve children in making props or backdrops for the dramatic play center or child-created skits or plays.

Visual Arts-Based Themes and Studies

Visual arts-based activities, thematic units or emergent investigations might focus on an artist, style, or medium and also provide a natural means for integrating different dimensions of the curriculum. One of the richest sources of inspiration for teachers is childrens picture books, since children are naturally drawn to the illustrations. Teachers can refer to winners of the Caldecott Medal, an award established in 1938, in particular for examples of childrens books with exceptional artwork.

For example, Eric Carle (and many other picture-book illustrators) works in a distinctive collage style that is easily recognizable to children and inviting for exploration. A teacher we visited with earlier in this book, Ms. Mary, engaged preschool children in reproducing the “Eric Carle effect.” She set up a “finger-painting factory” in the art center, and for several days the children filled 18- by 24-inch sheets of glossy finger-paint paper with every color of finger paint they could possibly manufacture by mixing and combining colors on the paper and using different kinds of toolssuch as brushes, scrapers, and combsto create textural effects. She then cut the dried papers into smaller 6- by 8-inch sheets and the children used them to create a massive “collage file,” sorting and organizing the papers according to the color spectrum (a wonderful activity for visual discrimination as well). This supply of “Eric Carle paper” was used in dozens of ways over time, from reproducing collage illustrations inspired by the characters in Carles books to building a rain forest in the schools hallway, using the papers for tree trunks, leaves, exotic birds and flowers. The appendix to this book includes a selected list of author/illustrators with distinctive styles that could be used to inspire activities for exploring media.

The topics/subjects of picture books are also easy to connect with science, literacy, or math activities. An extensive online resource for preservice and practicing teachers who want to use picture books to design planned explorations around a theme is the Miami University searchable database of picture books, which provides a short annotated summary of each.

Interactive Media

In recent years, many forms of technology that teachers can use to support visual arts activities have become increasingly available. Teachers can use these tools with discretion to introduce and involve children in experiences with visual arts (NAEYC, 2012). Note that, particularly with children, the use of any technology should enhance and expand rather than replace experiences with authentic media and concrete materials.

Here are some examples of technologies that can be used to support arts activities:

  • The Internet can provide vicarious and sometimes interactive access to art images that teachers can use to share information about artists and examples of different kinds of artwork with children. Images can be printed for display or used in collages and displays.
  • Hardware such as computers or handheld devices with touch screens, whiteboards, and drawing tablets can also be used with young children to create and generate digital artwork.
  • Digital photographystill and video cameras are available in kid-friendly models that children can safely use with assistance to capture, print, and share images and video. Some young children can also manage video-editing software.
  • Software and applications made for children to use, such as KidPix, first introduced in 1989, which provides children with digital drawing and painting tools for free-form creations and the embedding of clip-art, 3D backgrounds, and animation.
  • Software and applications teachers can use to create digital stories with embedded images of childrens artwork and audio narration, such as Microsoft PhotoStory, Apple iMovie, or Voicethread.

7.5 Music, Creative Movement, and Drama

More From the Field

Beverly Prange describes the importance of using music to get children’s attention.

Critical Thinking Question

  1. What songs or nursery rhymes you might use for this purpose?

Music, creative movement or dance activities, and experiences with drama provide natural support for both physical development and aesthetic awareness while simultaneously fostering critical thinking and problem solving through mind-body connections. (Marigliano & Russo, 2011) Listening to music, whether to classical works like Rimsky-Korsakoffs The Flight of the Bumblebee or folk tunes like Shell be Coming Round the Mountain, produces a range of emotional responses. Creative music and movement activities require the child to make perceptual/motor connections in order to move, balance, and develop awareness of space, time, and rhythm (Hendrick & Weissman, 2007).

Extending childrens love of dramatic play to creating or acting out stories provides them with confidence and opportunities for personal expression and communication (Edwards, 2009). Attending musical, dance, or theatrical performances gives children the chance to enjoy and respond to the ways others interpret these artistic disciplines. Creative activities that promote the expression of ideas and feelings are preferable for young children over teaching them prescribed dances, steps, or memorizing/rehearsing lines to perform a scripted play (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Hendrick & Weissman, 2007).

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