Art Masterpiece

The Art Masterpiece Program is a national art enrichment project that uses reproductions of fine works of art to promote art literacy in children.

Parent volunteers bring the prints to the classroom and present a lesson planned for a particular grade level. It is a wonderful addition to the classroom curriculum.

Art Masterpiece lessons are taught on a bi-weekly basis, for ten weeks in the Spring. The last about 15-20 minutes in length.

The purpose of the lesson is not necessarily to teach various art/craft techniques, but to increase the child’s awareness of art. We focus on various elements, such as line, color and texture. As the children increase their awareness of art, they are able to recognize more of the art that they encounter in their world everyday.

There is one “Art Masterpiece Coordinator” and their job consists of coordinating the parent volunteers and the masterpieces they will be presenting on a rotational basis.

The goal is to make sure that all classes are being taught and that each child is able to benefit from this program. The coordinator will also make sure that only one class, per grade level, is being taught at one time.

Supplies for the Art Masterpiece program are provided and located in the media center at school.

Bi-weekly, the Art Masterpiece volunteer will come in and receive a copy of the lesson for that week. After reviewing the lesson, they will contact the teacher and coordinator to set up a time to teach the lesson. When they are ready to teach the class, they pick up the print from the media center and proceed to the classroom.

Once in the classroom, they begin the lesson with a brief description of the artist and their particular technique. The beauty of this program is that you do not need to be an artist to teach the lessons. You need to be willing to get up in front of the class and talk about the artist and art work at hand. The art work will remain in the classroom for one week and at that time the teacher will have one of the students return the art work to the media center for the next class room presentation.

If you are interested in The Art Masterpiece Program please contact Sara Coppola at sara@coppola.net or 480-396-4873.

Click Here for the Mesa Public Schools Web site for Art Masterpiece.