One afternoon during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, as I was retooling my in-person courses for online instruction, I took a break to see how the educators and artists I follow on Instagram were faring. As I scrolled through a variety of posts, I happened upon an image showing a page torn from the 1940 children's book "Lentil"…

This article explores how the notion of a serendipitous curriculum relates to young children's artmaking events in an early childhood center in the Midwest. A new materialist theoretical lens is used that not only considers the agency and action of children, but also enables ALL matter within a relation to act. In doing so, it offers a way to…

This article explores the technology fluency of the preschool "digital native" and how this familiarity with technology influences learning in the classroom. The study involved introducing tablets as a tool for mark making and observing how students engaged with the technology creatively. This study considered the continuously rising…

In this article, the author discusses some of the photographs and videos that her students produced, and shares how their artwork serves as one way that, when given freedom and choice, children will incorporate violent play into their artmaking activities. The author argues that these images are not evidence of inherently violent, dangerous, or…

In this article, the author provides a brief synopsis of a study he conducted about the nature of children's drawing among first and second grade students. Laroche noticed that when first and second grade students sat at a table of four or had their individual desks grouped in fours, frequently the drawings from that group of students had similar…

In this article, the author examines how art educators can create narrators of art history rather than those who ascribe truth to the opinion of a few. She presents a series of tangible classroom activities that will potentially help art history become meaningful to students' lives. The author states that students have a right to access art…

The title of this article borrows loosely from the philosopher Nelson Goodman, whose classic essay "When is Art" addresses context and symbolic function. The discussion in this article concerns an entirely different matter: identifying moments when a learner's creativity is sparked in school art programs. The word "creativity" usually enters…

In this article, three art educators reflect on their ideas and experiences in developing and implementing innovative projects for their courses focusing on art for elementary education majors. They explore three different approaches. The three areas that are discussed in depth include: (1) understanding child art; (2) visual culture; and (3)…

This article describes how High School Visual Arts Teacher Jethro Gillespie built a portable art gallery for his students--essentially an 8-foot cube made from plywood and lightweight boards that can be assembled with bolts and taken apart in sections. The ceiling pieces of the gallery have track lights, the interior walls have been painted gray,…

The author was interested in seeing what would happen if children were given more latitude when making art in school. In January 2009, he began by setting up environments in his classroom wherein he hoped his students would feel free to create self-initiated forms of artmaking. Two times each week an hour was set aside for an activity called Open…

The author conducted a descriptive case study that used artmaking to investigate the phenomenon of representation of personal and cultural identities. Set within the middle school visual arts classroom, the study focused on three female, dual-culture 6th-grade students. "Dual-culture" is defined in this context as a person born in the…

While art education programs often rely on preservice teachers learning by reading pertinent literature and by following art technique demonstrations alone, they may disregard the tensions many preservice teachers feel between the different contexts of studying in university and teaching in schools. Teachers rarely have the opportunities and time…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of Viktor Lowenfeld's influence on her research, describes visual anthropology, gives examples of her research, and examines the implications of this type of research for teachers. The author regards Lowenfeld's (1952/1939) early work with children in Austria as a form of participant observation…

It is important for art teachers to understand how children develop artistically. This kind of knowledge is essential for choosing age-appropriate teaching strategies and content for the units and lessons that the art teacher develops. Beginning art teachers study developmental theory in educational psychology classes, but it seems that this is…