The Davis School Arts Foundation is pleased to announce our collaboration with The Davis Arts Center and the Davis Joint Unified School District to provide Art Kits for all 5th grade students throughout the district. This onetime block grant, estimated at $40,000, will take the place of our usual grant program for the 2020-2021 school year.
ABOUT THE KITS:
- Kits will be made available a variety of materials delivered directly to all 5th grade students, accompanied by printed lessons and backed up by video support.
- The art activities will build on one another, include art history, technique and cultural diversity.
- Classroom teachers, science teachers and other artists will also receive kits so they have the option of developing projects and sharing them throughout the school year.
- Art Kits and lessons can be incorporated into online lessons with teachers, used offline to compliment online instruction such as science drawing, or simply for fun.
- Written materials will be translated into Spanish and reviewed for cultural relevance.
- The Art Kits will also include Sing-A-Long videos with local artists. The songs will be from a variety of cultures, and genres with closed captioning included.
- All materials can continue to be used when and if schools return to site based instruction.
- California Arts Standards will be used in determining projects and materials for the kits.
PROCESS AND TIMELINE:
- No application will be necessary – all 5th grade students and teachers will receive kits.
- Distribution will be through each school site’s existing materials pickup system.
- Availability is targeted for mid-December or early January for use in the second trimester.
In addition to the Art Kits we hope to develop Dance Curriculum sets for K-6 grades. Each set of videos will be available to all elementary school teachers. They will be taught by diverse instructors from the region and include teacher guides to each video. This portion of the project will require additional funding. We are exploring funding options including school district funds, PTA’s, community donors and more.
Covid19 and the move to online instruction made individual DSAF 2020 – 2021 grants problematic. DSAF recognized a new approach was needed that was easy, equitable, relevant and fun. We believe the Art Kit Project meets that goal and our mission to provide partnership and support of culturally relevant arts education for children in our public schools.
Questions regarding the project or DSAF can be sent to: DSAFstudio@gmail.com