The Art Adventure Program

(January 2008) "Family, Friends, and Foes" has arrived at St. Croix Catholic School!  This is our Art Adventure set from the Minneapolis Institute of Art which Kindergarten through 5th grade  students will experience during the month of January.  For those of you who may not be familiar with the Art Adventure Program, here is a brief overview.

Art Adventure is an educational program sponsored by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and is a fantastic way to bring art to life for children.  This is our twelfth year of Art Adventure at SCCS and the program has met with great enthusiasm from students, teachers, and parents.  Each year we rent a set of eight reproductions from the museum's permanent collection, based on a theme.  Parent volunteers, known as "Picture People", attend a three-hour training class at MIA, then brainstorm ways of presenting the pictures in the classrooms.  The technique is based on VTS ("visual thinking strategies"), in which children are encouraged to first observe, then articulate what they believe the artwork is about.  Volunteers facilitate the discussion and repeat the children's statements so that they are able to make connections based on their observations.  It is a wonderful way to get kids involved in art by increasing their power of observation, thinking, and verbalization skills.  This can also lead into related art and writing projects.