Jumpstart Art: A Hands-on Visual Art Education Program 

 

The Dry Canyon Arts Association (DCAA) Jumpstart Art program provides hands-on visual art education for all Redmond School District’s K-5 students. Jumpstart Art serves over 3,000 students yearly with in-class sessions taught by local Artists-in-Residence.  In the spring of 2024, DCAA learned that funding for art education in the Redmond School District elementary schools had been cut.  We met with the District Superintendent Dr. Charan Cline and formed a unique partnership, DCAA raises funds to cover the cost of the Artists-in-Residence and the art supplies for visual art education in all eight K-5 elementary schools including the online Flex program.  The district provides the classrooms with the teachers present and the school facilities for the culminating events held after the completion of the Jumpstart Art sessions.  DCAA raises the funds from community donations, DCAA Art Show raffles, and a variety of grants. 

DCAA determined the most inclusive way to reach all students is through in-class art education accessible to every student including special needs, low-income, and non-English speaking students. In-class art education also means there are no costs to the students’ families and students access their regular means of transportation. Each school is allotted funding based on their student numbers and their ranking on the poverty index.  Teachers remain in the classrooms while Artists-in-Residence teach 3-5 sessions of hands-on visual art education, and every student creates an art project.  The teachers learn how to teach art and how to integrate art into their curriculum.  At the end of the Jumpstart Art program each school holds a culminating activity for parents and community members to come to the school and celebrate their students’ projects.  These events are well attended, and the students are proud to show off their artwork.

Why is visual art education important for K-5 students? What are the benefits:

•    Fine motor skills: Grasping pencils, crayons, chalk, and paintbrushes help develop their fine motor skills.  
•    Cognitive development: Art helps children to learn and practice skills like patterning and cause and effect. 
•    Math skills: Children can learn, create, and begin to understand concepts like size, shape, making comparisons, counting, and spatial reasoning.
•    Language skills: As children describe and share their artwork and the process used to make it, they develop language skills.

Jumpstart Art is a very successful and cost-effective program ensuring all Redmond School District  K-5 students have continuing quality hands-on art education experiences that are critical to academic and social success in their elementary years.

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Click here to see Jumpstart Art in Action!