The Arts Keep Minds Active in Summer
Avoid summer brain drain by engaging in the arts
May is here and summer vacations are right around the
corner. Unfortunately, brain drain is also a reality for a large number of children
and young adults during the summer months. While many children have access to
enriching experiences over the summer, there are a number who struggle during
time away from school due to a lack of access to educational opportunities, as well
as a lack of healthy meals and adequate adult supervision.
According to the National Summer Association, statistics
show that many students lose the equivalent of two months of grade level
equivalency in math and other skills while out for the summer, and more than
half of the achievement gap between lower and higher-income youth can be
explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities.
The availability of technology adds an additional challenge
to a healthy summer lifestyle, making it easy for children to spend the summer
indoors, engrossed in television, video games and other sedentary activities.
More and more children are becoming overweight and unhealthy through lack of physical
activity.
There are many activities children and their families can
explore in Martinsville-Henry County relating to the arts. Did you know it is
always free to visit the Piedmont Arts galleries? Or that children can come and
hang out in the museum's Discovery Room and use their creativity to paint,
play instruments or put on a puppet show?
In addition to free access to the museum, for
a fee, children can also enjoy this year’s Summer ART Camps during the weeks of
July 19 – 22, ages 5 – 7, and July 26 – 29, ages 8 – 12. According to Piedmont Arts
Education Coordinator Brian Stanley, this year’s participants will explore
STEAM, where the arts are included to “propel the student’s critical thinking
skills, and understanding of form and function.”
Here
at Piedmont Arts, we realize how important it is to integrate the arts across
curriculums; that the arts are integral to education and learning, not an
add-on. Numerous studies have been
conducted that show that children who have access to arts programming, have
improved academic achievement. Twentieth-century German
philosopher Ernst Cassirer explained the importance of the arts as follows:
‘Science gives us order in thoughts, morality gives us order in actions; art
gives us order in the apprehension of visible, tangible and audible
appearances.’ A good education includes a good arts education, introducing
children and young people to great literature (novels, poetry and short
stories, plays), dance, visual arts, music and film. (spiked-online.com)
Summarizing this summer’s art camps, Stanley stated that
students will “dive into hands-on problem based projects that connect
printmaking, sculpture, painting and design to those skills.” He explains that
children will learn the ins and outs of t-shirt printing, from the construction
of the silk screen, to
the design process, and finally to printing their own t-shirt; and participants
will learn how sculptors use STEM to create dynamic pieces
of art and will create a chair using cardboard that will not only be a work of
art, but also functional for use.
“We
will experiment together to push everyone’s creativity, create something they
will never forget and more importantly explore the world around us and making it
a more whimsical place to be,” says Stanley.
Summer
brain drain doesn’t have to be a reality for our children. Whether visiting
Piedmont Arts and going on a scavenger hunt in the galleries; enrolling in art
camp; taking in exhibits at the Virginia Museum of Natural History; embarking
on a walking tour of the many murals in Uptown Martinsville; visiting the
public library; playing on the playground at the Smith River Sports Complex; and
the many other Martinsville-Henry County destinations, children and families
have numerous free or low-cost activities to stay engaged.
We
hope you will make Piedmont Arts a part of your summer fun!
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