The Evesham Township School District and the non-profit organization Art Goes to School of Delaware Valley have teaching art appreciation classes down to a fine art. For the 28th year, E.T.S.D. has partnered with the Evesham Chapter of Art Goes to School to bring art appreciation classes to every student in the district for one week.
Supported by the E.T.S.D. Board of Education and coordinated through the parent teacher associations, the all-volunteer Art Goes to School program brings in reproductions of famous and lesser-known works of art and engages the students through games and activities. They can match potential captions to paintings, create slogans for the pieces, and listen to music clues — lyrics, the mood evoked by the music, or both — to identify paintings. This year’s program in E.T.S.D. kicked off on Monday, April 28, at Van Zant Elementary School.
“The games we play are designed to help the students look for details in the art, often things they might miss if they just glanced quickly at these works in museums,” said Anne-Marie Bellshot, Chairperson of the Evesham Chapter of Art Goes to School. “We also give the students an opportunity to see various art styles next to each other, to compare and contrast, in a way they can’t do at museums.”
The volunteers, some of whom are new to the art world and others who have degrees in art, attend meetings twice a month, beginning in September, to learn how to best inspire elementary school children to interact with fine art. Bellshot encourages her volunteers to work with whatever information they find most interesting.
Arlene Harvey, parent volunteer, was watching her child participate in an Art Goes to School class six years ago when she decided to get involved. “It was so interesting. We learned so much and I got addicted to it,” Harvey said. “It’s pretty rewarding, because the kids teach us stuff, too.”
Harvey reports that on a recent class field trip to a museum, the students were able to tell adults about the art they saw because of what they had learned in Art Goes to School classes. It’s evident that the students enjoy their time exploring the various artwork and older children often remember paintings from previous years.
At the end of the week’s classes, each student voted for the painting they liked best, which will then be purchased and framed by Art Goes to School using money from the PTAs and PTOs and presented back to each school. This year, Water Lilies II by Claude Monet was the clear winner. Perhaps the children found him artfully delightful.
