Partners in Arts Participation

Contracting with the Children’s Theatre Company, the artists and Head Start teaching staff used storytelling and creative drama to promote critical thinking, literacy skills and creative self-expression. Children’s Theatre Company Artists lead children through interactive storytelling experiences related activities and reflection exercises tailored to the classroom goals and curriculum. Over 200 staff, children and parents attended the theatrical production. A parent event was planned and conducted sharing an Early Bridges lesson with Parents In Community Action families. Our target community and our annual community assessment information indicated that Head Start children and families are often the poorest of the poor in our local community. Low-income families often do not have the financial resources or time to access artistic opportunities for their children. Many families also face language and/or cultural barriers to accessing the arts. The Early Bridges Program was effective in reducing these barriers. They brought the arts directly to the classrooms and provided an opportunity for children and families to attend a theatrical performance. 2: We increased parent participation in the classroom and on field trip days to the Children’s Theatre Company. Due to the grant funding, the agency was able to have performance tickets donated to families that lived in the area for the children and families that did not participate in the grant funded classrooms. Verbal feedback was asked of the participants. Many of this was done verbally through a translator. Parents also signed in on the Family Attendance Sheets with their respective classroom. Teachers, parents and administrators participated by being an audience member in the classroom while the teaching artist acted-out an interactive story. In addition to that, teachers and administrators participated in the actual story-telling production in the classroom. Teachers and children helped to make puppets and props that went along with the chosen book that was selected from the current theme the classroom was working on. We would use the arts again to achieve service goals as they nicely mesh together with our curriculum.