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Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum

Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum

Brittany Clayton

Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana

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Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum
What is art to you? This is a question that takes more thought than just answering if you

are wanting to answer correctly. To me, art is my children’s Mother’s Day cards, my birthday

card from my niece and things in that area. Others may look at art as pieces by famous artists

such as Picasso. E.A. Bucchianeri said “Art is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone will have

their own interpretation.”

Young children enjoy drawing and making things to show off and it is a great way to help

them learn things that will follow them the rest of their lives. Things such as fine and large motor

skills are one of the major things that they will develop when learning to draw and this is

important because it will help them with kindergarten readiness immediately. They will also

learn life skills such as believing in themselves and never giving up.

The article Art in Early Childhood: Curriculum Connections explains how art can help

children with their socio-emotional development. Things such as emotional satisfaction and

building their self esteem are contributing factors to using art in your lesson plans. Children will

receive emotional satisfaction by simply being involved in choosing the materials used and what

they are making.

Art can also help to strengthen children’s cognitive development. The article states

“Kamii and DeVries (1993) suggested that exploring materials is very important because it’s

through exploration that children build a knowledge of the objects in the world around them.”

(Englebright Fox & Berry, n.d.) How children process the information they learn depends on

how they learn. If a child is a kinesthetic learner, they will learn better by doing things hands on,

if they are a visual learner, they will learn best by being shown what to do and if they are an

auditory learner, they will learn best being told what to do. All of these learning types are best

taught through art.

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Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum
In the article it talks about how art can help children who aren’t able to express their

feelings. Drawing how they are feeling through use of color and picture is a great way to help

these children express themselves and their feelings. It does this by allowing them to release and

show their feelings in a way that makes them comfortable.

Art is also able to help children develop their hand eye coordination. This is important to

learn early because it will eventually help them with their handwriting. “As children decide how

to make parts fit together into a whole, where to place objects, and what details to include, they

learn to coordinate what they see with the movements of their hands and fingers.” (Englebright

Fox & Berry, n.d.)

Meeting the needs of the whole child means that you aren’t simply focusing on a group of

children, but every child in the class. In order to do this, a teacher should allow the children to

make decisions about what they are making and using. This will help them with decision making

and to become more creative.

Observation is an important skill for children to learn early. Being able to see the things

around them and their surroundings will help them to be safe and will make learning come easier

to them. This is a lifelong skill that needs to be mastered in order to fully succeed.

Art is a way to help children learn to use observation and to help them with memory. For

example, you were to allow a group of children that had close to the same knowledge level to

draw pictures of animals that began with each letter of the alphabet they would be more likely to

not only memorize it but to retain it. One major issue with learning is many people are focused

on memorization rather than retaining the information that is given. This is important because the
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Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum
things that they will learn in the early years of school are the things that will follow them for life

so memorizing it just to forget it later isn’t enough.

In the article The Role of Drawing in Kindergarteners’ Science Observations, it explains

the importance of observation and how using art is a good way to help children obtain this

lifelong skill. “Focused observations in which children use drawing to record what they see

provide the foundation upon the skills and abilities needed for scientific inquiry are built.” (Fox,

2019)

”According to Dever and Jared (1996), integrating art activities into a unit of study

benefits learners in at least two ways. First, art gives children opportunities to think about what

they are learning as they create representations and products that reflect new understandings.”

(Fox & Schirrmacher, p. 239) “Second, as children manipulate art materials, they learn about

characteristics of materials and what can be done with them.” (Fox & Schirrmacher, p. 239)

In conclusion, art is an important subject for teaching the whole child. It shows them

different ways to not only learn but to obtain the information that they are learning. It also helps

them develop skills such as fine and gross motor skills and gives them a higher self esteem

which in return helps them to be better students. Every child learns differently and deserves

every opportunity to learn to the best of their abilities and art is an important subject to teach in

order for them to be able to do so.

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Integrating Art throughout the Curriculum

Fox, J. E., & Schirrmacher, R. (n.d.). Art and Creative Development for Young Children (8th
ed.). Cengage Learning.
Fox, J. (2019). Drawing in Kindergarteners' Science Observations [Ebook].

Englebright Fox, J., & Berry, S. Art in Early Childhood: Curriculum Connections [Ebook].