Hello! I hope everyone’s first week of the semester has been good. For me, the first week is all about adapting to my new classes and getting organized. While getting organized, I came across some important papers that I think would be beneficial to share.
The papers I rediscovered are from my Art Education class last semester, about all students in the elementary grades. Today I want to discuss Kindergarten specifically. It is important to understand where your students are developmentally so you can cultivate their growth. This paper I found shows some key concepts art educators should be honing in on for Kindergarten.
As you can see, concepts that we might not even think of, like “left and right”, need to be practiced and taught. Directions are a critical part of art education, and we all have to start somewhere. Having a lesson dedicated to teaching “left and right” or “the center, side, top, and bottom” may encourage the groundwork for future successful lessons. There is a lot of information on this page, and it was extremely helpful when I needed to make lesson plans for kindergarten. From relevant vocabulary, different types of lines, necessary motor skills, and even types of artists, it’s great inspiration for creating a lesson geared towards kindergarteners.
Another thing I found beneficial, still referring to the kindergarten grade level, was how I can connect art to other subjects. I believe when art is taught in conjunction with other areas of curricula, it makes the information more relevant and engaging. This little snippet showcases how, for instance, math can relate to art through patterns and geometry. Something I found particularly interesting was raising students’ awareness that everything around them is art. As the paper says, even toy packaging is a type of art, which could be quite relevant to a kindergartener.
Personally, I found these papers incredibly useful. I intend to actively use them in my future career. There are so many resources available online, but sometimes it is helpful to have a hard copy. Anyways, I look forward to seeing how the rest of the semester goes.
Thanks for reading!
~Eleora
Papers
They say they are from Henrico County Public School, HCPS, but I obtained them from class