Including art into the elementary curriculum to help engage children in their own learning

The purpose of this capstone project was to prove that including art into the elementary curriculum can help engage children in their own learning. Art education is important for student’s development and schools are slowing decreasing the amount of art provided in classrooms. Interviews were conducted with teachers at an elementary school regarding questions that pertained to the importance of art in the classrooms and how it benefits students. Responses indicated that the state standard guidelines limited the amount of time in the classrooms for art. To support the importance of art in the curriculum, the researcher created lesson plans incorporating art based learning with other core subjects. By showing teachers how to create lesson plans combining art and other core subject’s, students can continue to receive the benefits of art based learning every day