Art Curriculum in the Classroom

This week, I received a call from another elementary school looking for Art Appreciation Presentation material.  I recommended that they look at my Art In the Classroom blog and the many links on the sidebar. After hanging up the phone, it occurred to me that I should probably hop over to the blog and check to make sure all the links were working. (Sad to say, the blog is in need of some much needed lovin’. Admittedly, if I could spend all day writing on the blog, I would.) All the links worked and it appears some have been updated since I first added the links. An amazing abundance of Art Appreciation curriculum is available for teachers and educators to use in the classroom – many created by world-class art museums.

Here are a few of the resources available:

National Gallery of Art Classroom
Kennedy Center - ArtsEdge

Art Institute of Chicago
Guggenheim Museum
Louvre
Los Angeles County Museum of Art/LACMA
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Modern Art/MOMA
Americans for the Arts
Art Appreciation Resources
Mrs. Picasso's Artroom
The Teaching Palette

This afternoon, after teaching my after-school art class, I had a wonderful discussion with the school principal. The conversation started because I mentioned that, in the twelve years of my teaching art appreciation classes, every class has been filled with insightful, enthusiastic, amazing students. Then, she told me the students didn’t have art at the school – as part of their regular day. What? No art in the school? It was my understanding that Illinois had a state mandate of half an hour per week - shocking in itself and why I started teaching art appreciation. She said that the teachers try to add art lessons that, more often than not, tend to be craft projects. With that being said, the above art curriculum links are a necessity in the schools.

And, of course, here are some new interesting nonfiction books to add to the classroom:

Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave

Laban Carrick Hill (Author)

Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (September 2010)

2011 Caldecott Honor Book

How the West Was Drawn: Cowboy Charlie’s Art

Linda L. Osmundson

Pelican Publishing (January 2011)

Dolley Madison Saves George Washington

Don Brown

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (October 2007)
I love the Portraits of the Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery.

I have to show off the beautiful drawing that one of my students made for me after she finished the class assignment.    ♥