Visual Art Curriculum: Ages Nine to Twelve

 Creative Arts Overview

The Montessori classroom provides every child with opportunities to build knowledge, understanding and skills in all areas of the arts, including visual art, media arts, music, drama and dance. The primary goal of creative arts education is the aesthetic development of the student. This area of the curriculum nurtures the expression of creative ideas, while at the same time building knowledge and understanding of aesthetics as a discipline recognised in the wider culture to guide the development and execution of creative ideas and the opportunity for art to contribute to the lives of others. As with the exercises of practical life, creative arts activities begin with the arts that are part of the culture of the country, region or community in which the school is located. Creative arts also become integrated and interrelated with other curricular areas, including language and mathematics, history and geography, as well as biology and the other sciences.

Montessori classrooms recognise the deep, fundamental need of the creative arts as an ancient practice. Opportunities exist for experiencing and exploring the work of First Nations artists and their practice across the diverse First Nations language groups and countries. In the 6-9 classroom, this may involve the music, arts, dance, media arts and drama that is part of the culture, region or community in which the school is located as this more closely allows children to see and understand the connection to place and responsibility for Country and Place. Children in the 9-12 classroom may additionally see the capacity of the arts to continue and revitalise culture. These opportunities build a richer understanding of  First Nations’ ways of knowing, doing and being. Careful choice should be made to include resources that are developed by and/or with First Nations Australian peoples to allow children to see meaning and practices and clear understandings of the protocols for the transfer of cultural knowledge where some layers of knowledge can’t always be shared. Teachers, as guides to the learning, should understand the importance of these cultural protocols when accessing these First nations’  works  with children at this level, beginning and developing their understanding of the cultural protocols of the art works or cultural expressions and respecting these rights. For example, information about Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and protocols for respecting these rights in Australia is available on the Australia Council for the Arts website. Other key resources may be found at Australian Curriculum Cross-curriculum priorities.

An essential ingredient in the creative process is the ability to concentrate, to immerse oneself in one’s work. Children’s ability to concentrate is strengthened through the use of materials and exercises offered at the moment of interest, a central component of Montessori pedagogy. Opportunities for independent work and repetition during blocks of uninterrupted time enable students to immerse themselves in creative arts projects alongside, or integrated into, their work in other areas of the curriculum. These opportunities also ensure development of collaborative creative skills across cycles.

The Montessori creative arts curriculum, as with other areas of the Montessori curriculum, are not ‘worked through’ in a rigid way. The curriculum is an expansive framework within which key lessons offer knowledge and skills needed for independent work. The key lessons in the creative arts enable children to develop knowledge, understanding and appreciation, alongside the development of skills and techniques that enable them to follow their interests independently, encouraging a purposeful application of skills to making and creating.

The Montessori approach to creativity is summarised by Dr Montessori (1965b: 289) in the following way, in this case, with reference to the teaching of visual arts:

"To confer the gift of drawing we must create an eye that sees, a hand that obeys, a soul that feels; and in this task the whole of life must cooperate."

Similarly, in the context of the Montessori music curriculum, Miller (1996: 4) writes:

"The development of perception is enhanced through all of the Montessori educational materials. The control of the body and hand is enhanced through manipulation of materials, through the arrangement of the environment so that it calls for muscular control, and through specific movement exercises. This basic control of hand and body make possible the further refinement of movement necessary for the development of techniques which are needed for creative expression … Montessori activities are designed for the ‘whole child’ rather than just for the head, or just for the hands or just for the emotions."

The music curriculum includes the use of concrete materials through which children study the elements of music, including patterns of musical sound as well as musical notation and terminology. Building on this foundation, children develop knowledge and skill in composition, appreciation and performance. In the same way children are given the opportunity to study the elements of visual art, media arts, language arts, drama and dance as a basis for future creative expression in these areas. Through these creative activities they build confidence in themselves as doers, thinkers and creators.

The key lessons of the creative arts curriculum in the 6-9 classroom, as much as possible, should be delivered by the classroom teacher. There are several reasons for using this approach. The use of specialist teachers interrupts the extended work period and can inhibit spontaneous musical, artistic, dramatic or dance projects, because children may be less likely to apply knowledge gained outside the classroom, from a specialist to their own classroom work. Furthermore, when specialists are used, some children may feel they also must be ‘a specialist’ in order to undertake, for example, a simple musical project. Instead, children in Montessori classrooms are exposed to generalist teachers who exhibit confidence in undertaking any artistic study together with their students. In all this work, the purpose is to expose children to the arts, rather than to perfect techniques. Guidance for teachers may be found from their local curriculum (see Australian Curriculum Learning Area resources). Specialist teachers, however, might at times be invited to the class to extend children’s knowledge and skills in particular areas they wish to pursue in more detail or to a higher level. Specialists might also coordinate large group projects.

The creative arts curriculum outlined below covers a wide variety of strands and topics to enable children to pursue their own interests and abilities at their own pace. For this reason, curriculum documents for children aged from six to nine and for those aged from nine to twelve share similarities, although progression and development through the stages of learning is differentiated and communicated in the Montessori curriculum through the terms introducing the knowledge and skills. As an individual-centred and constructivist practice, Montessori educational philosophy and practice recognises that students may achieve at points that differ from their peers. Montessori classrooms /learning environments, with their 3-year-age range known as cycles that correspond to developmental stages, provide students with the experiences detailed within the Montessori curriculum. Whilst these experiences are not based on the expectation that all students will achieve at the same time or by a specified end point, teachers use their knowledge of the child and the curriculum and the suggested achievement bands within their state or country to inform their support and monitoring of student progress (See AC Learning Areas The Arts).

A lesson or presentation given at the younger level will be repeated and expanded at the older level, with the expectation that the older children will reach a higher level of achievement. As many of the elements of the content strands are interrelated, more than one area can be combined in a presentation with older children, for example, using household objects to print repeating patterns with primary and secondary colours. This combines elements and principles of design, repetition, colour, pattern, variety, rhythm, with the technique of printing and the use of the medium of paint.

Art Appreciation

Art appreciation is an important aspect of the Montessori creative arts curriculum. By looking at the artworks of others children see how others have created unique works using a range of knowledge, skills and techniques. Children are encouraged to think about and discuss why something is painted a particular way, or the historical events that might have influenced the artist and the work. This habit of talking about art also creates a positive climate and a language for discussing their own artworks. In addition, when children explore the artwork of others, they are more able to develop their own ideas and approaches, for example, by emulating the style, technique or feelings conveyed by an artist they have studied. Montessori art appreciation card materials allow children to learn about different artists and their works independently.

Excursions and goings out include visiting museums and art galleries, and attending a variety of performances. Professional artists are also invited to visit the classroom, to talk about and demonstrate their works, methods and ideas. These activities widen the children’s view of the creative arts and expose them to different cultures and ideas.

Visual Arts

The visual arts are integrated into the Cosmic Education curriculum because the natural and the human world are sources of inspiration for artistic expression, as described by Pottish-Lewis (2009:44) in the following way:

The first source of beauty to which a human is exposed is the earth and its inhabitants, whether organic or inorganic. … The world is filled with a special kind of aesthetic wonder: beauty surrounds us in the interaction of colour, line, shape and form: the colours of a sunset, the lines of the mountain tops, the shapes and forms created by canyons and hills, the geometric patterns on the shells of snails, the variety of corolla designs. Not only can we find beauty in the natural landscape, we can see it in buildings, bridges, buttresses, and many things that are the creation of the human’s inventive mind.

In the Montessori view, educating the hand to draw and the eye to perceive and to make aesthetic judgements provides children with the skills needed to create their own visual art. Inspiration and artistic creation derive from both the development of technique and freedom of spirit. In Montessori classrooms prepared for children from six to twelve years old children participate in small and large group presentations in which they learn the basics elements and principles of the visual arts. They learn skills and techniques, and how to use a diverse array of media, as well as appreciation of artworks relevant to the skill being taught. Each skill and technique is taught in isolation. Children are then given time to experiment with this skill alone, before creating works incorporating other skills and techniques. They are introduced to various art media and techniques in order that they may use it for their own creative expression rather than using it to duplicate someone else’s creativity.

The Montessori classroom for children of this age includes an art area that is always available for the children to use. The material in the art area includes activities that isolate skills (e.g., motif design, wood carving, colour blending) and activities that allow for creativity using all the skills acquired in basic exercises. Through the exercises of practical life children are familiar with the routines involved in preparing and cleaning up art materials. Uninterrupted blocks of time allow children to complete artworks at their own pace and to their own satisfaction.

Montessori environments prepared for children aged from six to twelve have the atmosphere of a workshop. Materials for a variety of activities, including art materials, must be available at all times so that the children can integrate art activities into other activities across the spectrum of disciplines. Art activities are not organised as separate and individual activities, but in sets of related media and tools that the children must choose from according to the needs of the activity. Keeping the art materials in order requires cooperation between children and a high level of responsibility. This is very different from the self-contained activities of the Children’s House and is a major aspect of the practical life of the class. There may also be an area or room designated for larger projects, projects requiring specialised equipment and cooperative art activities across levels, although this should not turn art into an activity only done in a specialty room.

Art making is frequently integrated across the curriculum, for example, in language (calligraphy, illustration), mathematics and geometry (2D and 3D design, technical drawing), the sciences (model-making, botanical drawing) and the social sciences (model-making, illustration, visual arts across time and cultures). Children’s artwork is evaluated in its own right, relative to the goal of the work attempted, rather than in comparison to the work of others.

Geometry is an area of the curriculum that is intimately related to art. The Geometry materials are used for design work in a number of ways. Techniques using tools such as the compass, straight edge, protractor and ruler are shown early in the environment for six-to-nine-year-olds so that the children can do creative follow-up work with geometric design, angles, lines, shapes and both two- and three-dimensional constructions.

Handwork is an extremely important part of art activity in Montessori environments prepared for six to twelve year olds. It is connected to the ‘hand that works’ area of the history curriculum. The children benefit from being taught the basics of many types of handwork such as weaving, woodwork, needlework, clay, papier-maché and knot work, as well as work with yarn such as spinning, knitting, crocheting and dyeing. These folk traditions have had enormous significance for humanity and connect the children to their historical heritage.

In the Montessori view handwork is very important in a society that has become heavily mechanized. Dr Montessori believed that children, through handwork, stay connected to the source of human technological developments and, therefore, to their own humanity. Handwork also carries much cultural significance and can play an important part in preserving the integrity and identity of an individual culture in a world that outwardly moves towards homogenization. Folk art projects can also extend the children’s understanding of other cultures and time periods and provide variety in the ways in which the children explore history and geography.

Visual arts activities also help build community. Beautifying the school, for example, can involve cooperation across age groups. The children might create displays, maintain a gallery of their work and combine efforts to bring art into every area of the school, both inside and outside, using a variety of media, e.g., a quilt or a sculpture garden.

 Knowledge, Skills and Understanding

Typically, children will:

.01 Explore reasons humans have developed and created art

.02 Explore where, why and how people across cultures, including First Nations Australians communities, experience visual arts

.03 Distinguish between contrasting periods and styles in art history

.04 Realise what artists do, who they are and what they make

.05 Understand that artists create for different reasons and that various interpretations and opinions of their works are possible

 Knowledge, Skills and Understanding

Typically, children will:

.01 Recognise, understand and demonstrate the use of design elements including:

• line

• shape

• form

• colour

• value

• texture

• space

.02 Recognise, understand and demonstrate the use of each design principle:

• balance

• rhythm

• pattern

• emphasis

• contrast

• unity

• movement

.03 Study of colour, including:

• historical colour derivation and use

• primary and secondary colours

• values and hues

• warm and cool colours

• complementary colours

.04 Experiment with a range of tools, techniques and materials in various media including::

• drawing and line

• collage and mixed media

• painting

• ceramics and pottery

• printing

• textiles

• woodwork

• mosaic

• photography

• digital and electronic media

 Knowledge, Skills and Understanding

Typically, children will:

.01 Generate artworks to communicate ideas using a variety of skills, techniques, processes, conventions and technologies

.02 Experiment with techniques and media used by various peoples around the world

.03 Use visual arts to add meaning to work in history, geography and biology

 Knowledge, Skills and Understanding

Typically, children will:

.01 Display and discuss own artwork with others

.02 Create artworks for specific audiences

.03 Reflect on and discuss the artwork of others

.04 Participate in art activities that involve cooperative efforts