This article takes as its starting point the assertion that the purpose of primary education is to value every child in the moment. The author examines one particular story by a six-year-old girl as an example of what this assertion implies, and of its significance for teaching and learning within the primary school.

A local childcare centre embarks on a first-time project to exhibit preschool children's artworks, acknowledging the importance of art-based activities in the development of young children. In the planning and implementation of a successful afternoon event, the centre's children, along with parents, other family members, friends, and educators,…

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…

This article describes an art lesson that allows students to set up and collect sphere canvases. Spheres move art away from a rectangular canvas into a dimension that requires new planning and painting. From balls to many other spherical canvases that bounce, roll, float and fly, art experiences are envisioned by students. Even if adults recognize…

"Images & Identity" was a two-year curriculum development project in which citizenship and art educators in the Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Germany, Malta and Portugal collaborated on the production of teacher education materials. The article begins with a critical analysis of educational policy for European citizenship and of…

In this article, I present a reexamination of the myth of inherent creativity in early childhood to elucidate how still-dominant discourses of optimization such as child development, individualism, expression, creativity, and visual realism exert limiting pressures on understandings of the art and visual culture that children consume and create.…

The autistic impairments in emotional and social competence, imagination and generating ideas predict qualitative differences in expressive drawings by children with autism beyond that accounted by any general learning difficulties. In a sample of 60 5-19-year-olds, happy and sad drawings were requested from 15 participants with non-savant autism…

We report the results of a climate change module delivered to 48 Grade 3/4 students in Nova Scotia, Canada. We tested for prior knowledge and evaluated interventional effectiveness using art elicitation. Common climate change misconceptions were demonstrated in their preintervention artwork, while postintervention artwork showed improved…

Children's artwork displays are a distinct and key feature of early childhood classrooms. The artwork produced by young children in the classroom is often linked to the educational program. After the completion of the art projects, early childhood educators face the challenge of displaying the children's artwork. With minimal research available on…

This article considers various approaches to consulting primary pupils about mathematics. This is done first through a literature review and second by drawing on our experience of designing and piloting pupil consultation in collaboration with staff in one primary school. Our concern is with the utility and drawbacks of the methods used rather…

This article reports on the meaning potential of daily access to drawing/writing media for widening and deepening meaning construction. In a yearlong study in a second grade classroom, the author worked with a second-year teacher to see what would happen when art and language were encouraged ways of knowing in which children could construct…

In this article, the author describes a lesson he created for his second-grade classes which was inspired by the children's book, "Why is Blue Dog Blue?", by George Rodrigue. In this lesson, the students make associations between places, food and events to determine the color of their dogs. (Contains 3 resources.)

The benefits of drawing for children are wide-ranging but are likely to be mediated by the art curriculum and other governmental guidance to teachers relevant to drawing/art. Furthermore, such statutory regulations vary between cultures, and therefore curricula represent an important influence on the cultural differences found in children's…

The purpose of our research was to test the following hypothesis: 6 and 7 years old children's representations were strongly influenced by the environment they lived in. Representations are interiorised models of objects, phenomena and events, independent of present use of our senses and of the presence or absence of objects. We realised our…

Storytelling-based arts projects offer a universal and inclusive pedagogy; challenging prejudices, celebrating diversity and promoting tolerance and resilience in participants. In addition they assist in the development of receptive and expressive language skills, provide a credible basis for understanding folklore, cultural traditions and social…