Describes Express-Ways, a Chicago children's museum providing free, hands-on arts experiences to students, teachers, and families. Focuses on recent exhibits and future projects. Suggests possible art education programs for schools. (DMM)

Describes ways that aesthetic theories can be integrated into children's art education. The author illustrates elements of E.H. Gombrich's theory of aesthetic perception using as examples art activities designed to increase student awareness of their "mental sets" and their understanding of how mental sets influence visual perception. (AM)

Investigates characteristics and themes in 102 drawings by sexually abused children. Themes of the drawings included genitalia, the absence of specific body parts, phallic symbols, inappropriate smiles, distorted body images, kinetic activity, prominent hands and fingers, and hearts. (RJC)

Kids can pack their shovel and pail, slather on the sunscreen and get ready to create their best artwork yet this summer. Art can be the one activity that you can take to the beach, the lake and special faraway places this summer. Being an artist on your vacation is an added dimension to how you see and experience the world you visit during this…

In this article the author examines ways in which early childhood students can explore the building blocks of form to reveal meaningful content as exemplified in four Modernist works of art. Each piece reflects of the Modernist aesthetic, characterized by the simplification of visual elements into flat, bold colors and simplified geometric shapes.…

In a between-subjects design, 4-to 6-year-olds were asked to draw from three-dimensional (3D) models, two-and-a-half-dimensional (212D) models with or without depth cues, or two-dimensional (2D) models of a familiar object (a saucepan) in noncanonical orientations (handle at the back or at the front). Results showed that canonical errors were…

The first thing a visitor notices when entering Hollytree primary school is the art-work displayed on every wall. This paper, based on a three-year ethnographic study of the school, mobilizes field notes and interview and photographic data to probe the meanings of this visual "display". We argue that the walls (re)produce and promote…

Research related to how young children's drawings change and develop is well documented and an extensive literature on this area can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Most of this literature, however, focuses on developmental aspects and largely fails to explore what would seem to be an essential ingredient in each drawings…

In this article, the author explores the multimodal poems, digital photographs, and three-dimensional artistic creations of young children who live by the sea. Encouraged by their teachers and adult artists, the children learned to look closely at the sign systems of art and poetry to open up worlds of image creation and metaphor making. Teachers…

This book is a guide to activities appropriate for any type of arts and crafts program including those for camps, youth and adult groups, and outdoor education. Information concerning each craft is presented in a step by step format. Specific projects list the needed equipment and materials and have simple instructions and clear illustrations. The…

Drawings by kindergarteners were submitted to adult judges, who were asked to both identify the child's gender from the drawing and to give reasons for the judgement. Results showed that judges were accurate about 60 percent of the time in identifying boys but only 30 percent for girls. (Author/EB)

The president of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Ernest L. Boyer, discusses the importance of developing creativity in the classroom. (MD)

The Egyptian architect Wissa Wassef believed artistry in crafts to be an innate human characteristic that would be universally expressed under the right conditions, i.e., the practice of the craft from early childhood. When he had Egyptian peasant children with no previous art experience weave tapestries, the results astounded the world. (RM)

Richmond schools created two projects to publicize and promote art education. One was a billboard display of original student art throughout the city (Art in the Open), the other a display of student art on city buses (Art Bus). The project successfully generated excitement about art education. (MD)

Discussed is whether or not folk art and children's art are really art. Child and folk art are two rich sources of imagery that can lead to a re-examination of the connections between the ethical and aesthetic in other more traditionally accepted forms of art. (Author/RM)