In the current climate of state-mandated education standards and assessment that prioritize math and language arts in U.S. schools, drawing, an accessible and/or pleasurable endeavor for a wide variety of children, is undervalued. Although research in art education over the past four decades has shown children's drawing and drawings to be rich…

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing stay-at-home orders have shifted family lives worldwide. Government regulations about social distancing and isolation have resulted in parents/carers and children spending most of their time together in private spaces. During the northern hemisphere spring 2020 semester, most childcare and school systems closed…

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…

Children are drawing inventors. Their art is certainly not what most adults think of as drawing. Almost instinctively, kids know that drawing is everywhere--that they can draw with almost anything, and that innumerable surfaces can be converted for art use. Teaching drawing is showing interest and enthusiasm for kids' drawing inventions--instead…

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…

When her director first asked her to teach an art class in the infant room, the author must admit that she thought her director was crazy. She nodded and smiled, pretending confidence, all the while thinking, "Teach art to infants? What does that even mean?" But when a teacher is trying to get a job at one of the best early childhood…

This article reports on the most recent phase of an ongoing research program that examines the artistic graphic representational behavior and paintings of children between the ages of four and seven. The goal of this research program is to articulate a contemporary account of artistic growth and to illuminate how young children's changing…

Students who have difficulty with academics often benefit from learning mnemonic strategies which provide a step-by-step process to accomplish a task. Three fourth-grade students who struggled with writing learned the Ask, Reflect, Text (ART) strategy to help them produce more elaborate narrative story text. After initially asking the questions…

Foil can be shaped into almost anything--it is the all-purpose material for children's art. Foil is a unique drawing surface. It reflects, distorts and plays with light and imagery as young artists draw over it. Foil permits quick impressions of a model or object to be sketched. Foil allows artists to track their drawing moves, seeing the action…

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…

This article reflects on the significance of a series of encounters with a baby doll in an early years' classroom during an artist residency. The article takes an event when a small group of children encounter a baby doll as its starting point. By connecting this shared lived moment with Deleuze and Guattari's idea of machinic production and…

In school, the author sat next to Sandor the sculptor--when he was still undiscovered. He could take a pencil and, while seemingly listening in class, completely reshape the pencil by biting it. To detail his best pieces, Sandor would highlight the dents and gnashes with colored pens. Little did Sandor realize that his early efforts would be an…

In this article, the author examines the use of transitional objects in a case study of a 12-year-old boy, documenting the role of art therapy in helping the boy cope with the trauma of his parents' recent separation and divorce. Transitional objects emerged spontaneously as the boy integrated the transition that the divorce of his parents…

Andy Goldsworthy has always been one of the author's favorite artists. He admires the way Goldsworthy works with natural material and how his work distills the elements of art and principles of design so that one can easily recognize them. In this article, the author describes how he exposed his students to the natural beauty that fall has to…

Asperger Syndrome (AS) and autism are two pervasive developmental disorders of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Individuals with AS may have exceptional speech and language abilities and difficulty establishing friendships with peers. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) states that all American children have the right to…