Learning is a creative, artistic, and imaginative process Experience Curriculum incorporates art throughout all learning experiences. Experience Curriculum embraces an arts-infused curricular approach. Art naturally integrates multiple areas of development and allows children to experience knowledge as an integrated whole (McMahon, 1997; Di Vesta, 1987).
Creativity allows children to individually express ideas, take risks, make choices, apply new knowledge and explore their curiosities.
Our art-infused curriculum model supports the idea that all children are capable, beautiful and have the right to discover and construct knowledge through play.
READ: Supporting the Development of Creativity (NAEYC)
Research Supports Art
Research has validated the importance of art in the learning process and overall development of
the child:
- Art increases a child’s problem-solving skills (Douglas, 2001).
- Dramatic play supports the development of long-term memory and increases mental
capacities for recall (Liebermann, 1995). - Children use props in dramatic play and dance to demonstrate the ability to think
symbolically (Gaskins & Miller, 2009). - Creating art enables children to develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination
(Koster, 2005), visual discrimination (Morrow, 2007), and foundational math skills
(Roberts & Harpley, 2007). - Early musical development builds fundamental auditory and rhythmic understanding and
increases spatial-temporal reasoning (Schiller, 1999). - Art, music and dance invite children to develop social and emotional skills by symbolically
representing their feelings, thoughts and imaginations (Seefeldt & Galper, 2008; Gaskins
& Miller, 2009).
Experience Curriculum activities:
- Provide a stage for creative play and learning.
- Stimulate the senses.
- Promote inclusion of all children.
Experience Curriculum arts-infused model integrates sensory-based techniques for engaging children in a variety of ways and on multiple levels.
Creative Learning Children & Educators Love
We provide props for play, music CDs, art supplies, storytelling prompts, and a range of resources to manipulate in creative and independent ways. We write lesson plan books to model a variety of ways educators can use materials (both easily found materials or those that we include in thematic curriculum kits) in skill-based and creatively playful ways.
The teacher’s role in the constructive creative process is one of guide (Brownstein, 2001). As the children explore with their senses, we offer suggestions throughout our lesson plan book on questions teachers can ask to prompt deeper thinking and further creative exploration. The result is engaged children and teachers sharing in dialogue, discovery and developing a love for learning (Rhodes & Bellamy, 1999)
Learn more about the Arts in Experience Curriculum
- Understanding Invitations to Create
- Benefits of Collage Art
- Why Are Music & Art So Important?
- Dance Builds Motor Skills
- Self Exploring Through Unguided Art
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