http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-resources-lesson-plans#graph1

I suggest that teachers and homeschooling parents check out edutopia if you have not already. there is a wealth of information on integrating art into core studies.

Edutopia’s Schools That Work series profiles K-12 schools, districts, and programs that are dramatically improving the way students learn. Focusing on evidenced-based successes, we create how-to videos and actionable tip lists to help you transform your schools. We get close to the teachers, students, principals, and other administrators who have changed the future of their schools, and show you how they did it.

These educators also share their resources — rubrics, lesson plans, assessments, and training tools that will help you build your own successes.

And one more thing: We connect you with teachers and administrators from around the country who are collaborating to make similar improvements in education.

Are you using mLearning to present core studies to your Classrooms? If so, you should check out the Born To Draw digital learning resources. Our program includes professional development training and offers a website membership subscription that gives secure access to all the resources on the Born To Draw website. This helps integrate art education into core studies and gives children a chance to learn to draw.

Mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, iPhone, are an investment into the achievement gap by offering digital educational curriculum, presentation and interaction into the learning environment. More digital learning resources are now being offered, such as my products for integrating art education for common core learning or offering art education as required.

The Born To Draw digital learning products are definitely a niche offering. I cannot begins to compete with the likes of Scholastic or other the corporations. Read more →

By Caleb Jacobo, Guest Writer

Creative Commons 4.0 Attributions

Nation of Change photo Credit Creative Commons 4.0 Attributions

With my daughter soon to be entering the public school system, I’ve become more and more concerned with the quality of exposure to the arts that our public schools provide for our children. That includes music classes, drama clubs, and any other ‘extra-curricular’ activity that is suffering from budget cuts. Read more →

Here is a great article from guest blogger Lisa Pemerton on art education. Sharing ideas like this is important because it relates to interdisciplinary common core subject matter. This project is showing what is possible and how art can be made to have a lasting impression.

Mariah Art: 25 of program’s students help create ‘vibrant’ mural for wildlife refuge center

LISA PEMBERTON | Staff writer • The Olympian—Published September 04, 2012  Creative Commons License 4.0 Attribution

Mariah Art students installed a mural about the life cycle of a salmon last week at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge’s Environmental Education Center.

“I’m really proud of it,” said 12-year-old Ellison Roycroft, a seventh-grader at Griffin School. “The colors are really vibrant.”

About 25 students worked on the project that involved 180 4-inch-by-4-inch hand-painted ceramic tiles, said Diane Gaile, the school’s owner and director.

“The children drew individual pictures and the teachers put together the composition,” she said. “It’s all original. They painted all of the animals that are on it.” Read more →

Here is a List of jobs-and-careers-in-the-arts PDF

Types of Art Jobs and Art Careers 2012

An art job involves employment with a company relating to training and skills as an artist. Most artists dream of working for themselves, as a self-sufficient artist. That may happen eventually, but even famous artists have had to work at jobs outside of the art field early in their careers. This is a necessity for most, since money is required for bills, clothing, rent, food, etc… not to mention art supplies.

Today, with the advancement of new technologies, the need for qualified creative people with an artistic background is growing as well. Certain jobs require imaginative, critical thinkers. Employers who are searching for such employees tend to give preference to people with a Fine Arts background.

An art student just entering the art field or finishing art school may be encouraged to know that there are several art related careers that they can apply for. Most require extra skills and training, so set your sights on developing these to land that dream art job. Read more →

I would like to preface this editorial by saying that Terrance Pratt could just as well be talking about the state of education in America. Education is being corroded by extreme right wing tax policies that are literally cutting the budgets of schools to the point of even closing schools. These ideological policies are destroying the foundations and principals that built a strong educational and Democratic system. Today reform is the hot topic and exactly what ideology prevails in the short and long term is what will determine the building of a strong social society or one that plunges our children into poverty and all the misery associated with it.

We have a moral responsibility to give our children the strongest education we can.  The Born to Draw art education platform advocates visual literacy, integrates art into core curriculum and it gives children and adults the permission to express the creativity of the Human Mind.  As Terrance Pratt so rightly states,

We study art, not because it will get us a job at Atlantis, but because it shows us and allows us to express the creativity of the human mind. In short, a good education system awakens in its students a sense of awe and wonder and engenders in its students a love of learning for learning’s sake.

I am a life-long learner working on the third, maybe fourth, act in my life which is allowing me to give back to a system, that when it was strong, gave me the tools to help change children’s lives. Let us develop a common core value for a future of critical thinkers who will pass the torch and allow light to shine on our Democratic principals on keeping our society strong in all the correct ways. Read more →

My View: Don’t narrow the focus of our schools

By Gene Carter, Special to CNN

Licensed through the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Editor’s note:  Gene Carter is CEO and executive director of ASCD, an international education leadership association with 150,000 members—superintendents, principals, teachers, professors, and advocates — in more than 145 countries.  A veteran educator with experience as a teacher, administrator, superintendent and university professor, Carter took over the helm of ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) in 1992.

Every parent knows how important it is for a child to experience classes beyond math and reading. Many parents I talk to tell me that their child’s favorite subject is art, history or physical education.

One parent recently described to me how her daughter’s physical education teacher was able to tie science and physics to each lesson. Another parent praised the school gardening program and how much her son was learning about health and math by plotting out garden planters that grew many varieties of vegetables. Read more →

“I Draw Pictures All Day”

By Alma Hoffmann  August 3rd, 2012  Creativity, Inspiration, Workflow

From Smashing Magazine — Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0

“So, you do nothing all day.”

That’s how many people would respond to someone who says they spend the day with a pen or pencil in their hand. It’s often considered an empty practice, a waste of time. They’re seen as an empty mind puttering along with the busy work of scribbling.

But for us designers and artists, drawing pictures all day is integral to our process and to who we are as creative people, and despite the idea that those who doodle waste time, we still get our work done. So, then, why are those of us who draw pictures all day even tempted to think that someone who is doodling or drawing pictures in a meeting or lecture is not paying attention?

What does it mean to be a doodler, to draw pictures all day? Why do we doodle? Most of all, what does it mean to our work? It turns out that the simple act of scribbling on a page helps us think, remember and learn.

Read more →