Facilitating collaborative creativity among children involves offering material resources that support collaborative and creative interactions. Popular views of tablets, such as the iPad, suggest that they are better suited to solitary game-playing or video-watching than to collaborative open-ended tasks. I explore this further through a social…

This study was conducted in a survey model in order to compare the drawing development of gifted and children of normal development in the Scheme Period (7-9 years). A simple random sampling method has been included in the study of 122 gifted children with 135 children of normal development. In the study, the data were collected via the drawings…

This paper proposes that the future is uncertain for many children. Both natural and human-made disasters are adversely affecting the lives of millions of children and their families. An example of an environment-related disaster is cited from Sichuan Province, China, where a massive earthquake killed some 70,000 people in 2008. How the teachers…

In this article, we present and discuss a project in which children in two different environments, in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and in the south-eastern part of Norway, were given the opportunity to express themselves through drawings. We investigate how differently--and how similarly--the children express themselves when they were…

Australia holds some of the most unique, diverse and vulnerable ecosystems in the world, ranging from marine, coral reefs, to the arid and semi-arid outback, to tropical rainforests. Young children's perceptions of, and attitudes to their environment carry with them into adulthood, determining their capacity to learn about and interact with their…

"I'm trying the least of anything to control this drawing ... in fact I want it to run away with me." says Billy, a fifth grader who reads at 13th grade level. He clears his throat and begins to sketch and his stories flood the page. This qualitative research paper looks at what free sketchbook drawing does for a group of boys ages 8-14 who…

In this article, the author presents an activity she introduced to her first-grade art students. The activity, called Rootin' Tootin' Cowpokes, was built on a theme while encouraging students to express themselves through various art media. Each student began by creating his or her own wanted poster, choosing an alter ego with a nickname, and the…

It is important to find the means by which struggling writers can find success in the English Language Arts. For students struggling with reading and writing, the visual arts may be a way of accessing and expressing their ideas and ultimately opening up a world of creative possibilities. This article explores drawing and painting as a pre-writing…

Discusses Kellogg's four distinguishable stages of children's early art development as reflected in scribble art. (MP)

In this article, the authors describe Picture Power, a project they implemented during late spring in a full-day Montessori preschool-kindergarten program in Philadelphia. In this project, the authors set out to gather information about children's visual learning. The underlying question was whether artwork could provide useful clues to inform…

Discusses how Franz Cizek, the first proponent of the hands-on approach to childrens' art education, influenced the direction of twentieth century art education. The author points out that, although Cizek's theories profoundly influenced other educators, he himself never actually applied them in his own classes. (AM)

Children are motivated to write when they produce their own rubber stamps to use in their stories. Suggestions for making rubber stamps in the classroom are given. (DF)

Describes nine consequences for children who are given the opportunity to work with art teachers. Some of these are that making images provides intrinsic satisfaction; children learn that the images they create can function as symbols; and children's power to conceptualize visual ideas and to use effective means of expressing them increases. (KC)

Describes an artists workshop, parallel to a writers workshop, that integrated student choice of topic and media, reading, art, and writing. Outlines the workshop routine, discusses the artists' notebooks kept by the students, and explains how writing as an essential element of the workshop reveals the thinking, planning, and discovering that…

Describes a cultural arts program of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) that encourages K-12 students to explore their thoughts and express them through the arts. The 1988-89 theme was "Proud Experiences," around which students created artwork that depicted feelings of accomplishment as well as national and family pride.…