On July 26, 2010, the U. S. House of Representatives passed a resolution designating the second week of September as Arts in Education Week to promote and showcase the immense role arts education has in producing engaged, successful, and college- and career-ready students. The resolution states:
Arts education, comprising a rich array of disciplines including dance, music, theatre, media arts, literature, design, and visual arts, is a core academic subject and an essential element of a complete and balanced education for all students.
Arts Education Partnership has created a hub site for sharing information about National Arts in Education Week – links to partner sites who are planning activities and finding out about arts education policy and practice in states and communities. To learn more, visit Arts Education Partnership.
To help you celebrate the arts in your classroom this week and throughout the year, we offer the following resources:
K-12 Curriculum Resources
The Art and Science of Impressionist Color
Students will learn about the Impressionist painters’ use of color and how it connected to early-19th-century scientific theories about color. They will explore combinations of primary and secondary colors, experiment creating secondary colors, and create a landscape using complementary colors.
Creating Comic Strips
Starting with the familiar Peanuts comic strip characters in the form of video and print media, students explore comic strips as a form of communication of both fiction and nonfiction. In this lesson, each student creates an original comic strip to convey a mathematical concept to share with a younger student.
21st Century Skills Map (
PDF, 2.5 MB, 17 pgs.)
This Skills Map from the Partnership of 21st Century Skills (P21) presents just a few of the many ways that children acquire 21st Century Learning Skills through arts study.
Recommended Reading
Articles – NEA on the Arts in Education
- Discipline Tips from Drama Teachers
[Enter, stage left]: The discipline pro! That would be your school’s drama teacher, who shares her strategies for classroom management and student engagement. Ta-da! (August 2009) - Yo! From Tupac to the Bard
Educators are stepping to a new beat, making use of hip-hop music to engage their students. (November 2008) - Dance of the Trapezoid
Educators use the power of the arts to teach math and science (May 2008) - State of the Arts
When tap shoes are silenced and paintbrush bristles left to harden, student achievement suffers—often at the schools where the arts are needed the most. (January 2007)
Research
Americans for the Arts Research that makes a case for arts education and its economic, social, and educational value.
National Art Education Association Links to journals; articles on issues in aesthetics, arts education, art theory, and visual arts; statistics; and assorted databases.
Current Grant Opportunities
- Ezra Jack Keats Minigrants (Pre-K and Elementary School)
Public school libraries and public libraries that host programs encouraging literacy and creativity in children can apply for an Ezra Jack Keats Minigrant of $500. - Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest
States hold competitions on memorizing and reciting poetry by mid-March.
