Arts Integration

What does it mean to be an Arts Integration Model Elementary School (AEMS)?

Did you know that Potomac Elementary is one of three schools in Montgomery County Public School that is part of a three year United States Department of Education grant for Arts Integration? We are presently participating in our second year of the grant. The grant funding offers many opportunities for our staff and students.

For example, through a partnership with Towson University and Montgomery County Public Schools, the professional staff takes graduate level courses. The classes provide an overview of arts integration, help define its instructional role and introduce related teaching strategies.

• Towson University

Another aspect of the grant allows planning time for the classroom teachers and the arts team to develop arts integrated lessons. These lessons are taught in the classroom with the students benefiting from the input of the teachers and their collaboration.

• Curriculum maps
• Lesson plans

Other partnerships include instruction from Imagination Stage, a locally based theater group and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Arts Excel Program.

• Imagination Stage
• Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Museum in Progress is another aspect of the Arts Integration program. Students create “museums” based on their unit of study, such as Colonial Times, Solar Energy or Electricity.

• Museum in Progress

The local PTA and the Maryland State Arts Council cosponsor artist in Residence program. Students work with an artist and learn different styles and techniques in an art form.

• Artist in Residence

What does this mean for our students?

Students are exposed to a variety of art styles and techniques including dance, movement, theater, music and visual arts. Lessons incorporate problem solving, higher order thinking skills and learn more in depth about each particular art form. Perhaps most important, they make connections between real life, the curriculum and the arts.

• Photos

What is Arts Integration?

Simply put, arts integration is when there is a natural connection between the curriculum and the art form. The teacher teaches both the arts objective and the curriculum objective side by side enabling students to make connections between them and their real life world.

More Resources:

• The Kennedy Center ArtsEdge