Art appreciation

Art appreciation itself can be a somewhat confronting experience for students, who may be hesitant to engage fully with the art. In order for students to develop a deeper way of creating and responding to art, students must first truly look at the artwork. The inquiry method, proposed by Feldman (1970), suggests that by stalling students in order to make them stop and look, one can begin the process of effective art appreciation. 

Memory drawing of a wheel

There are many ways in which a teacher in the primary classroom can achieve this - games are a useful method of getting students to participate and engage without even realising that what they are doing is appreciating and responding to art. A couple of examples of these are the alphabet game (asking students to come up with something from the artwork that begins with each letter of the alphabet), dinner party (where students must ask questions to discover which art work they are portraying), and the art map compass. The important thing for primary teachers to remember is that art appreciation should be enjoyable, and will be most effective when it is meaningful for students. 

Drawing with a picture to work from

Art appreciation has numerous benefits for primary students; research shows that students who engage in art appreciation within the curriculum displayed higher self esteem (Aylward, Hartley, Field, Greer &Vega‐Lahr, 1993). It's an important skill to nurture, in order to equip students with the skills necessary to make sense of art (Gibson & Ewing, 2011).

References

Aylward, K., Hartley, S., Field, T., Greer, J., & Vega‐Lahr, N.
(1993). An art appreciation curriculum for preschool children. Early Child Development and

Care, 96:1, 35-48.

Feldman, E. (1970). Becoming human through art: aesthetic experience in the school. Michigan, USA: Prentice-Hall.

Ewing, R., & Gibson, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.