Every Child Ready - Criterion 2.7
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Criterion 2.7: Fine Arts
Curriculum materials develop knowledge and skills that promote fine arts disciplines.
Indicator 2.7a
Curriculum materials promote the core ideas of visual arts, music, dance and drama through experiences that support artistic skill development.
Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for promoting the core ideas of visual arts, music, dance, and drama (2.7a).
The materials provide exposure to fine arts disciplines and artistic development skills through exploration within thematic units. Fine arts appear in themes, vocabulary, read-alouds, and centers, supported by teacher scripts, materials, and discussion prompts. Dramatic play centers allow students to role-play and act, while movement and dance appear in songs, tempo exercises, and gross motor activities. For example, in Unit 1, children participate in a music-and-dance gross-motor activity using the song Tiptoe Joe, matching their movements to changes in tempo. Teachers also receive prompts to encourage reflection, such as asking children, “What are they making and why”?
Unit 4’s Color & Art theme includes the read-aloud All the World’s a Palette, which explicitly focuses on visual art tools, media, and color use. Centers and small-group activities provide flexibility and differentiation, with structured experiences strongest in visual arts, drama, and movement/music.
The materials offer ongoing exploratory opportunities across units through art centers, dramatic play, and exploration stations. Unit 2, for example, encourages students to express feelings through the exploration station and to choose dramatic play roles, supporting creative expression and emotional connection. Unit 8 continues this pattern of unstructured exploration with an art studio center where children build three-dimensional dinosaurs using open-ended materials. Because each unit contains the same set of centers, students receive consistent opportunities for choice-based and creative engagement, though evidence of domain-specific skill development remains limited.
Students engage in creating, performing, responding to, and connecting with artistic work, particularly in visual arts and drama/movement. In Unit 4, after reading Maybe Something Beautiful, students act out story events and collaborate to add murals to a classroom “city” in the art and dramatic play centers, reinforcing artistic expression.
Fine arts vocabulary is introduced explicitly within units using visuals, definitions, and examples. Vocabulary appears repeatedly across centers, read-alouds, and group activities. Examples include Unit 8, where words such as clay and mud support discussions on materials and sculpture, and Unit 10, where terms like telescope, spacesuit, and planet are reinforced through props during centers.
Overall, Every Child Ready materials provide opportunities for artistic expression through structured and unstructured activities. The materials provide a somewhat balanced approach to fine arts disciplines and artistic development skills. Students engage in meaningful exploration across visual arts, music, movement, and dramatic play, with consistent opportunities for unstructured artistic expression. The materials include exposure to fine arts vocabulary and some teacher guidance to support student engagement. Materials would be strengthened by including a more balanced approach that offers children more opportunities to create, perform, respond, and connect with artistic work.
Indicator 2.7b
Curriculum materials embed artistic expression, ideas, and work throughout the content areas through integrated and interdisciplinary learning experiences.
Every Child Ready materials meet expectations for supporting artistic expression, ideas, and artistic work through integrated and interdisciplinary experiences (2.7b).
Materials provide exposure to visual arts, dramatic play, music, and movement throughout thematic units, and integration is intentional. Centers and themes are designed to connect fine arts with science, social studies, language, and other content areas. In Unit 2 (Family and Community / Houses and Homes), centers call for visual arts through painting, dramatic play through role-playing family and home routines, social studies through exploring different types of homes and community structures, writing through journaling, and music through related songs. Teacher guidance includes essential questions, targeted vocabulary, and facilitation strategies that help students create, move, and explore artistic expression in ways that reinforce learning in social studies, language, and science.
The materials include multiple opportunities for purposeful exploration that integrate artistic expression with other subjects rather than isolating art tasks. Exploration time is embedded daily through centers, and varied materials allow for flexible expression. For example, in Unit 8 (Dinosaurs / Soil / Building), students build three-dimensional dinosaurs in the art studio center using materials of their choice. These creations become props in dramatic play, where students work together to design a “Dinosaur Paradise”. Teacher guidance during these activities supports student choice and provides scaffolds, discussion prompts, and suggestions for extending thinking. Inquiry-based learning is emphasized through open-ended questions and essential prompts, enabling teachers to follow children’s ideas during structured lessons and unstructured play. Students engage in robust, play-based experiences that are student-led and designed to deepen understanding of integrated content areas.
Play-based opportunities are meaningful and intentional, connecting learning to real-life tasks such as shopping, cooking, and building. These activities occur daily in centers, gross motor play, and thematic lessons, promoting collaboration and critical thinking. Play mimics real-world situations, such as community activities and family routines, reinforcing concepts in health, the environment, and social studies while encouraging creativity. In Unit 9, students recreate picture frames using recycled materials, build a park in the Construction Zone center, sort litter into categories in Dramatic Play, and collaborate to create a class mural at the art easel, activities that integrate art, environmental awareness, and community concepts. In Unit 10 (Space), students paint themselves in space at the art easel, create telescopes using cardboard, tissue paper, and rubber bands in the art studio center, and explore magnets in the exploration center to represent how gravity affects the solar system. These experiences promote creativity while strengthening connections to science, social studies, and literacy. Artistic development is consistently incorporated into materials, allowing children to apply fine arts concepts to strengthen learning in other domains. Visual arts, music, drama, and dance activities provide opportunities for students to create and connect to broader artistic contexts.
Teacher guidance for linking fine arts with literacy, social studies, and science is embedded in read-alouds, centers, unit overviews, and small-group work. Guidance includes prompts, scaffolding questions, and sentence starters to facilitate interdisciplinary learning. While guidance is present across all fine arts areas, it is stronger in visual arts and drama than in music and dance.
Overall, Every Child Ready materials intentionally embed fine arts across thematic units, centers, and structured lessons, providing meaningful opportunities for students to explore, create, perform, and connect artistic concepts with literacy, science, and social studies. Integration is evident in daily play-based experiences that reinforce learning across domains. The materials offer moderate teacher guidance to support connection to other learning areas, including prompts, scaffolds, and facilitation strategies, particularly in visual arts and drama.