Why Make a Big Deal about Youth Art Month?
Why does it matter? Because as you know arts are often overlooked in this high stakes testing environment. But more importantly because recognizing the amazing work of our students and teachers builds confidence and understanding for the important role that art plays in the growth of children and in our communities.
As art educators, Matt and I work on promoting Youth Art Month in various ways throughout the month. As a district we hang both a secondary and elementary exhibit and recognize the young artists in a special reception, where we give each student a certificate and small sketchbook. Additionally we recognize the best in district with an award and larger gift, our team works hard to gather donations, serve refreshments and make it amazing night.
At the campus level, we are lucky enough to have open house in March so our campuses go all out to set up art and many participate in Big Art Day. Both our state organization the Texas Art Educators Association and the National Art Educators Association have so many resources to help teachers with ideas and planning.
Here are a few other ways to get ideas via social media:
Use the tag #YouthArtMonth or #YAM16 to view posts on twitter and instagram. There’s lots of posts throughout the month and these tags will help you find everything.
We’ve also been lucky enough to have two chats on #K12ArtChat discussing Youth Art Month, here is a link to see the archived chats https://storify.com/GrundlerArt.
Another great way to promote Youth Art Month is on a global level, by having students share their work on the Creatubbles.com via the International Youth Art Month Gallery. For more information here’s aquick read.
We hope to make this gallery go BIG! Please share with others and have your students add work so that we can celebrate them throughout Youth Art Month. We can’t wait to see what your students create!
Wishing you Inspiration, Creativity, and a Fabulous Youth Art Month!
Laura and Matt Grundler
