Northview Public Schools
Grand Rapids, MI
Developmental Kindergarten - 4th Grade Art
Students at East Oakview receive 1 hour and 10 minutes of Art, 1 time a week. During class, they are receiving instruction on the ever changing visual culture and how that impacts their lives. Emphasis is placed on the process of exploring a variety of subject, media, technique and themes through studio activity, and discussion about works of art to develop critical thinking, communication and visual literacy skills.
During the last 10 minutes of every art class, students take part in Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) which involves higher order thinking skills where students analyze artwork and listen to other students' thoughts about the work. They can agree and disagree with each other while respecting each other's thoughts and opinions backed up with evidence from the images we are reading.