Integrating art in the classroom is a crucial step in making lessons meaningful, fun, and memorable. Yes- art makes our hallways and classrooms more colorful and inviting. Most teachers love a good looking bulletin board or door display, and although that is a fine reason to create art… to make the classroom decorated with items the students created is meaningful. But there are so many more great reasons to include art in our classrooms.
I want to show you a picture of my door at home. These are the art projects my own children have created in their first grade classroom and preschool room. I get tons of worksheets and activities returned to me everyday. Those are reviewed and noted. Some make it to the fridge display. 
Art is saved and displayed at my house. It is not saved for a few days or weeks, but year after year.
Holiday projects are pulled out seasonally year after year.
My children remember what they make and the connections of that lesson.
Making the connections to books and activities might seem easier for my older daughter,
but my 2 year old brought home these art projects this week for Read Across America.
My two year old can hold up the art project and she KNEW each book that was connected to EACH art project.
She knew Cat in the Hat was with the Thing 1.
She loved the green eggs and ham coloring plate from Green Eggs and Ham.
She pulled out the Fox with Socks book for her fox.
She knew her fish was supposed to be red and blue from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.
And she went into her room and brought me out The Foot Book for the foot.
As a mommy, this is reason enough for me to love art work.
As a teacher this is my goal, what I strive for!
But there are more reasons that this to integrate art into curriculum.
There are many more reasons teacher should include art into their curriculum.
- It is a meaningful way to practice building motor skills. Cutting with scissors with a line and circle or gluing using dots and lines are important. Creating art is a fun way to practice. We don’t have to ask our students to practice cutting on straight lines, they can make octopus legs for our ocean unit or hair for All About Me theme. Nothing teaches a child to become a better “glue artist” than putting together a creation of their own. They learn the art of too much glue and not enough quickly. Here is an example. My class is creating a “No, David” figure after reading several David Shannon books. They practiced cutting straight lines for David’s pants, shirt, and blue stripes. They worked on cutting circles for his face.
My class worked on using dots of glue to apply David’s hair, but lines of blue to apply his blue stripes. - Art is a great way to identify and work on visual perception problems in the classroom. Visual perceptions can be defined as one’s ability to process and organize visual information from the environment. This is not an issue with eye sight and the ability to see. Rather can be difficulty discriminating between certain letters or numbers, finding matching objects such as socks or mittens, or putting together a puzzle. These problems can sometimes be hidden with students and even harder to work on with students without frustrating them. Completing art projects allows students to practice their visual perception by putting together parts of an art project to make it look like a finished work. I have noticed visual perception strengthens with my students with the more art projects I do. Typically I complete art activities whole group in the start of the school year. By winter, most of my students can look at the final product as well as their pieces and make their art look like the finished example, with their own spin of course.Here is an example of visual perception in action. I give my students an example art project,
such as Spencer from the book, Too Many Toys.
{Spencer is a little boy who wears a HUGE space helmet.}Once my class has all their pieces, I watch to see who can and can not create their own Spencer.
Most students are successful with relatively little help because they can and do use the example to create their art.
Students with visual perception issues will often struggle to create an art project that looks like the example. I sit them closer to the example, ask them to piece their project together like they think it will go to get checked before they glue, and I walk them through the assemble process as needed. Since we are not using letters, numbers, or words… this is less stressful but often a great reminder to why that student can’t copy a word from the board correctly or struggles to read fluently. - We can throw in a TON of positional standards while we are putting our creations together. We can work on above, below, left, right, on top of, on the bottom of, and everything in between. Lots of teachers ask me how I teach positional words. Do I work on it during on specific unit? No! I work on it every time we create a work of art.
Here is Alice the Fairy from another fun David Shannon book.
While creating her, we talk about her hair that goes behind her head, but her mouth that goes in front.
Her hands should be glued under the shirt on the left and right side.
- Some student think artistically. One of the key words in education is differentiation. We like to reach to the high learners, the learners who have limited experiences with learning activities or application, and all those in between. We also need to reach students who have a deep connection to art, creation, and the sensory experiences of creating art.
- Art is important for growth and improvement. Educators strive for a balanced student, which includes art integration. While reading the book Mama, Do You Love Me? during our Winter Animal unit we make Inuits or Eskimos.
We discuss how cold it is and therefore how warm each person must dress.
Their hands and feet would be covered completely.
They would want to have warm furs and skins layering their bodies and around their faces.
Here are some of our final products.
- Art can increase creativity and critical thinking skills into our curriculum seamlessly.
When learning about space and the Moon we discuss how the moon is a rock.
We paint our own moons.
Then we add craters to the moon to show what the surface of the moon actually looks like.
We use real images of the moon to think deeper about how the craters got there.
We are brainstorming ideas that we can research while our paintings are drying.
Does each child in my room know the moon is a rock that has craters in it? Absolutely.
Do we learn this is an age appropriate, high interest way? Yes.
Do my students run to the Space books to learn more so they could ask their own questions and answer more questions. YES.
Another example is a bee hive.
My class works as a team to create their hive using hexagon pattern blocks.
This is detailed, tedious work for 5 year old. {It is also another great example of motor skills in action.}
They all have to become busy bees and work together to create their hives. And it takes time.
The final product is a beautiful hive.
Art is also a great way to represent fiction and non fiction.
Here are the characters from Creepy Carrots.
We know that carrots do not have faces, they can not talk, 
and they most certainly are NOT creepy.
And here is our hallway display of our art and connections to literature.
“Years of research show that it’s closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity.” says Fran Smith
“Let’s face it – for the most part, children like arts education!!! It is “hands on”, has immediate rewards, focuses on positive achievements, develops concrete products, and fosters collaboration. There are many opportunities to “show off” and demonstrate skills through authentic performance. The arts enable children to grow in confidence and think positively about themselves and learning.” says Elliot Seif
Here are some related articles I found helpful.
Why Art is Important for Young Children
Why Arts Education is Critical
Ten reasons why teaching the arts is critical in a 21st century world.
Leave a Reply