TEACHING ARTS IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

Republic of the Philippines

MINDORO STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Bongabong Campus
Labasan, Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

MODULE IN TEACHING ARTS IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES

An Introduction

TEACHING
ARTS
in the

ELEMENTARY
GRADES

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COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Demonstrate in-depth understanding of the concept, elements, and principles of arts in the elementary grades.
2. Employ varied teaching strategies in teaching arts in the elementary level.
3. Design assessment tools in assessing learning arts in the elementary level.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson you are expected to:
1. Gain an overview of the course content, activities, and outcomes
2. Conceptualize a creative visualization of teaching Arts through a diagram
3. Explain the importance of teaching arts among elementary students

PRE TEST
Do you still remember some of the important terms and concepts about art? Take this simple test and
let’s refresh your knowledge on art.
Directions: Identify the following terms being described. Choose from the pool of words in the Box below.

Art Ars Applied Arts Aesthetics

Theatre Literary art Aesthetikos
Humanities Dance Poetry Performance

Art 1. A fundamental human activity that mirrors life.

Aesthetics 2. The study of Beauty
Aesthetikos 3. Greek word meaning communication with the senses.
Humanities 4. Considered as the oldest and most important means of expression developed by man.
Ars 5. Ancient Latin word meaning craft or specialized form of skill
Applied Arts 6. Incorporating elements of style and design to everyday items.
Theatre 7. Uses live performers to present accounts or imaginary events before a live audience.
Literary Art 8. An Art where artists express themselves and communicate emotions to the readers.
Dance 9. Series of movements that follows the rhythm of the music accompaniment
Poetry Performance 10. Artist expresses his emotions through words

CONTENT
Before exploring the fun and excitement of teaching arts to your pupils you first need to be acquainted
in the Philosophy and Rationale for Arts as it is the key towards understanding the course.
Note: Be mindful on the important concepts and ideas in Bold, italicized and UPPERCASE form.

PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALE FOR ARTS

The Arts has been present since the beginning of civilization as it is an essential means for man to live and
communicate with others. It has been used to enhance man’s life and surroundings, to express his thoughts,
dreams, and spiritual beliefs, and to share his own and his community’s aspirations, celebrations, and events.
Arts records, reflects, and rearranges man’s life and existence.

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The Arts is a visualization of a people’s history and uniqueness, a reflection of their creativity and
accomplishments, and a visible expression of their distinct way of thinking, communicating, reasoning, and
worshiping. It is expressed in a unique symbol system that is visual, kinetic and tactile. Howard Gardner, an
educator and psychologist, affirms that the arts develop the child’s “SPATIAL, INTRAPERSONAL, LINGUISTIC
AND KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCES” for the Arts develop a distinct way of seeing, thinking, communicating,
and creating in a person. Furthermore, Art develops and increases a person’s ability to apply creative and new
solutions, for new problems in our world. Schools, therefore, need to develop the multiple intelligences of a student
through the arts. The K-12 Arts Curriculum seeks to address these needs of our students for the 21st Century.
The 21st Century is a different world: it is highly visual, with a proliferation of images seen not only in static media
like magazines, books, paintings, and posters. Now images are kinetic and accessible in various media like
television, outdoor advertisements, movies, cell phones, and new technologies like iPads, iPods, DVD players,
personal computers, and tablets. Artists create, upload, and share via the Internet, images, sounds, texts, films,
videos, pictures, artworks, and designs. These are readily available and interactive, involving the viewer to react,
comment and utilize these visuals through the Internet. Teaching Art to students is one way for them to process
and interpret the barrage of images and sounds, in a critical and intelligent manner.
The focus of the K-12 Art curriculum is PHILIPPINE ART, CULTURE and HERITAGE, appreciating the diversity
of our local artists, our arts, crafts, and indigenous materials to strengthen the student’s identity of being Filipino,
before he/she is introduced to the art of other countries. The modules guide educators and provide our students
with art experiences, concepts, and processes that are presented in a SPIRAL PROGRESSION of difficulty and
depth from Kindergarten to Grade 12.
The approach is CHILD-CENTERED and HANDS-ON in creating art using locally available materials. It develops
the student’s imagination and individual expression, and his/her CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS through inquiry
into the aesthetic qualities of his work, the work of others and of artists from the Philippines and other parts of the
world. It culminates in connecting art to other subject areas and provides exposure and apprenticeship to
professionals in various art-related fields so the student can discover and consider the different career
opportunities in the arts.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

By deeply understanding and reading the

PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALE FOR ARTS,
kindly create your own visualization of Teaching
Arts in Elementary students through a simple
diagram (like on the left). Then write 2 to 4
sentences explaining your diagram.
The figure on the left shows the Curriculum
Framework of Music and Art.

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The big yellow curved line presents the K-12 Art

Curriculum. It has two single arrows pointing to each head, expressing the way people think, reason out, and
communicate with each other in the world of Arts. There are two circles inside – the blue one and the black, in
which the blue encompasses the main focus of the K-12 Art Curriculum which is the PHILIPPINE ART, CULTURE
and HERITAGE wherein the learners will encounter at this subject area, while the black contains – the concepts,
processes, and experiences (under the Philippine Art, Culture, and Heritage) where the students will understand,
perform, and apply. At the center, there is a hand symbol signifies the main approach of the study which is CHILD-
CENTERED and HANDS-ON, where the learners will create art using locally available materials that develops
their imagination and individual expression. Basically, the colors of every shape and symbol present colorful and
creative mindset of every learner that will develop in this entire curriculum.

ASSESSMENT
Answer the question and provide supports to your response/ claim/ argument. Support it by citing
relevant researches, journals, or personal experiences. Your output is only limited to 300 – 400 words or more
for the entire essay.
Why is it significant to teach art amongst students from Kinder to Six?

Where do young ones begin?

Young ones are very sensitive and are curious on such things they’ve seen around. They tend to ask
series of questions about particular matter especially those colorful things that caught their attention as well as
their interest. Children have also creative and imaginative minds. There are ones who can think of a specific thing
and draw or paint it in a paper. However, there are young ones who are not able to draw, color, paint, etc. what
they are imagining. In developing these knowledge and skills of the young ones gained from their homes or
environment, teaching art will serves as the key.
Teaching Art in Kinder to Six serves as the foundation in which they will be able to express themselves
through creating art piece, dancing, singing, acting, etc. Not only how they can express, but as well as they can
able to explore new skills they have had and possibly enhance by means of studying arts. Their imaginative
thinking as children will be widened.
Beginning from instructing kinder to six in arts, learners will develop to apply their knowledge and skills.
Specifically, in teaching kindergarten to grade 2 (five to eight years old), primary grade children are beginning to
understand that art is a way to communicate. They consciously create symbols and their pictures feature bold,
direct and flat images. There is little detail shown to realistic, spatial concepts. They are eager to share their
artworks with others. Then, when they are in grades 3, 4, and 5 (eight to eleven years old), Junior grade children
are beginning to search for specific methods for representing subjects and they seek to improve their technical
skills. They sometimes draw things as they remember, rather than how they see. They usually able to remain
focused on the creation of art without interruption for ten to twenty minutes and they are still willing to share their
work with others. Finally, when they have reached middle grades or middle school (eleven to fourteen year old),
Middle School students are comfortable with inventing new images and are flexible with changing visual symbols.

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They are comfortable working with a variety of media but are critical of their own work and the work of others.
They can often discouraged with their efforts and may loose interest in art if not redirected. Emphasis should be
on hands-on studio activities and enhancing visual literacy (Slater 1997).
In general, engaging elementary students in Art instruction helps them in the development of their motor
skills, language skills, social skills, decision-making, risk-taking, and inventiveness. In addition, learners will be able to
appreciate any form of art they are seeing around. Therefore, teaching art is significant among the students from
Kinder to Six.

References

KinderArt. (2021, June 14). Teaching Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2 Art Lessons. https://kinderart.com/k-1-2-
art-lessons/
A. (2021, March 3). Arts Education for Kids – Why is it so important? SKIDOS. https://skidos.com/blog/arts-
education-for-kids/

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REFERENCES

Assessment. Retrieved online at

https://www.incredibleart.org/links/toolbox/assessment.html.
Corpuz, B. & salandana, G. ( 2015). Principles of teaching ( withTLE). Quezon City:
Lorimar Publishing Inc.
Elements of art. Retrieved online at
http://www2.oberlin.edu/amam/asia/sculpture/documents/vocabulary.pdf.
Evans, J. (2001). How to teach art to children: Grades 1-6. California: Evan-Moor
Educational Publishers.
K-12 Curriculum guide for the Arts. Retrieved online at https://www.deped.gov.ph/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Arts-CG.pdf
McDonald, N. (2002). Developing arts-loving readers : top 10 quetions teachers are
asking about integrated arts education. Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
Szekely, G. (2012). Art teaching (12th Ed.). New York: Routledge.

RUBRICS
Your response will be scored using the following rubric:

Criteria 4 3 2 1
Content and The answer The answer The answer is not The answer is
Accuracy demonstrates great demonstrates a very incomplete and the
understanding of good, general comprehensive. key ideas are not
the topic by understanding of Key points are addressed and
providing accurate the topic. Some key addressed but not supported. The
and relevant points are clearly supported. answer
supports. All key supported and There are some demonstrates very
ideas are clearly explained. inaccurate and little or no
presented and irrelevant understanding of
explained. statements. the topic.
Organization and The answer is The answer is Improper
Fluency highly organized generally organization and
and ideas are well- comprehensible but structure distracts
presented using the ideas are the reader and
appropriate sometimes makes the answer
sentences. The disorganized. The difficult to
response is natural reader needs to comprehend. The
and easy to follow. exert some effort to answer uses
understand the flow unusual and
of ideas. confusing word
patterns.
Conventions The answer has There are a few
very minimal errors glaring errors in
in spelling, spelling,
punctuation, punctuation,
capitalization and capitalization and
grammar. These grammar. These
errors do not sometimes

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disrupt the flow of interfere with the
thought and the reader’s ability to
general understand the
comprehensibility answer.
of the answer.
Research The answer utilized
published research
and literature to
support claims and
arguments

Answer Key
Answer Key Pre test
1. Art
2. Aesthetics
3. Aesthetikos
4. Humanities
5. Ars
6. Applied Arts
7. Theatre
8. Literary art
9. Dance
10. Poetry Performance

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