Art 4 All

Roosevelt's PTA funds an art program for students in grades TK-5th grade through Community School of Music And Arts (CSMA).

The master art teacher works with students to develop hands-on technical skills and an understanding of the language of art, while also teaching art appreciation and cultural understanding of art and its history.

CSMA’s professional art teacher guides and encourages learning and creative expression through sequential lessons in drawing, painting, sculpting, and more. All art classes teach a concept such as line, shape, color, and develop basic technical skills. Lessons are often inspired by a cultural or historical context that encourages students to explore new worlds and view life from other perspectives.

Why is art important?
Art is a basic part of a good education

Why is art important?

Art is critical for educating the whole child
Arts education fosters brain development, especially of the creative and intuitive right brain functions.
Skills developed through art lead to better learning in other areas.
Students in quality art programs benefit from a wide range of positive effects including development of creativity and thinking skills, better self-expression, appreciation of art and music, learning about other cultures, and enriched personal satisfaction with their achievements.
The arts provide experiences that cannot be duplicated by other means.
Art gives pleasure and meaning to our daily experience.
Insights from the arts are as important in giving meaning to the world as those from science and history.
Through art, students develop cultural awareness and appreciation of other viewpoints.
Art develops social skills and teamwork. In art class, students are encouraged to share ideas and help each other.

Art is a basic part of a good education

Creating art helps children discover the unexpected possibilities of their creativity.
Art teaches critical thinking rather than getting the right answer.
Through art, children learn that problems can have more than one solution, and that questions can have more than one answer.
Art teaches students about subtleties.
Art teaches children to evaluate and make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Art reminds us that the limits of our language do not define the limits of our thinking.
Art celebrates multiple perspectives and different ways to see and interpret the world.
Art teaches students to explore through and within possible responses.
Art empowers children to say what cannot be said.
Art enables us to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of doing.
Including art in the school curriculum shows students what adults know is important.