Spiral books adorned the tables and paintings decorated the stands in the middle of 37 Place’s gym. This was no art gallery, but a way for schools to introduce art into kindergarten classrooms.
Recently, Art With a Heart hosted “Creative Kindergarten Connections,” which allowed kindergarteners from IPS schools 2, 56, 67, 84, 96, 105, Key Learning Community and St. Philip Neri Catholic School to showcase their projects.
Andrew Lee, executive director of Art With a Heart, said this program was created to keep art in the classrooms.
“The program was designed because although art is very age appropriate as a learning tool, what we find is that art teachers don’t get a lot of early childhood development training in college and classroom educators don’t get a lot of art education training,” Lee said.
This event is the first of its kind, but he hopes it becomes a tradition.
Parents were encouraged to bring their child along and also looked at art from other students. There were also play dough, do-a-dot, origami fish, lantern, and shape bingo stations for parents to get creative with their children.
Tiffany Toles, parent of 5-year-old Timothy Toles, said she is excited about her child’s art.
“He seems to be very intrigued in art,” Toles said. “I’m glad Art With a Heart was able to pique his interest with that and teach him different things.”
During the school year, the students work on a letter book, a number book, and a story/art activity to create a portfolio. Art With a Heart comes to the classrooms once a week to help students with their projects.
Robin Nichols, a kindergarten teacher at School 96, said Art With a Heart comes to the classroom for 90 minutes a week, providing lesson plans and art materials for the students.
These three projects not only help kindergarteners learn the importance of art, but also help them with math and writing.
“For kindergarteners, it’s easy because playing is how kids learn at that age and doing creative things is the right way for them to learn,” Lee said. “So we can tie in math; we can tie in literacy.”
Nichols said the kindergarteners enjoyed this program.
“They took to it right away. It’s very nice and they look forward to it,” Nichols said. “As we go along, their vocabulary builds as far as talking about art and their ability to know art, and they bring it into other subject areas.”
While this Art With a Heart program enhances students’ skills, Nichols also believes it is important for their personal development.
Nichols said, “It’s very good for many children who are maybe not academic kinds of kids. It gives them a chance to be successful and it also divvies up our leaders a little bit, because some of the kids who are really good at academics are not the best in art.”
For more information, visit artwithaheart.us.
