“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
– Mary Lou Cook
The standards for Kindergarten Visual Arts serve as the foundation for further visual arts instruction. These standards place emphasis on cognitive, affective, sensory, and motor development, using a problem solving approach. Students learn that art is a means for personal expression, has value, teaches about other times and places, and connects in important ways to other areas of learning. Students come to understand that their works of art are unique and valuable as forms of self- expression.
The standards for Grade One Visual Arts continue to emphasize that the visual arts are about ideas. Development continues in cognitive, affective, sensory, and motor domains. The standards continue to emphasize the language of art. Art production focuses on increased communication, self-expression, and the depiction of stories and events. Students learn that people have different responses to works of art.
The standards for Grade Two Visual Arts focus on the acquisition of a reservoir of ideas for art making. Students acquire ideas from their own experiences, their schools, their communities, the environment, and the art of other cultures. Students express these ideas, using an increasing variety of art materials, skills, techniques, and processes.
The standards for Grade Three Visual Arts emphasize learning through inquiry. Students examine aspects of the artistic process: idea generation, problem solving, and self-assessment. Students investigate the integral role of art and architecture within various cultures, and they combine knowledge of art and architecture, effective artistic processes and skills, and a variety of ideas to produce works of art.
The standards for Grade Four Visual Arts continue to emphasize the elements of art (color, form, line, shape, space, texture, value) and the principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, proportion, rhythm, unity, variety) as the basic building blocks for art appreciation and production. Students explore a range of art materials, subject matter, and ideas in their personal works of art. Students examine the influence of art of the past on contemporary culture.
The standards for Grade Five Visual Arts enable students to use their knowledge and skills to synthesize information, thus allowing them to produce and respond to works of art. Emphasis is on communication of personal values and beliefs in art appreciation and production. Students gain fluency in using and understanding the elements of art (color, form, line, shape, space, texture, value) and the principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, proportion, rhythm, unity, variety) as they relate to artistic expression and communication.
Grades K-5 art will include the following media experiences: drawing (including observational drawing), printmaking, painting, sculpture, ceramics, crafts, and mixed media All grades are expected to use oral and written language and art related vocabulary when discussing artworks and art making processes.