The Art of Change: Building the Future of the Children's Art Centre

If you or your family has visited the Children's Art Centre in the past year, you have probably noticed a lot of new faces, new classes, new materials, and new programming - there certainly have been many changes in recent months. While these program developments are exciting, they can also seem confusing or overwhelming at times. To help families better navigate and understand all the new programming in store, we would like to invite you in for a closer look at our structural and programming changes, and how they can benefit you, your children, and our community:

Preschool Arts in Early Learning Series and Early Childhood Programming

The Children's Art Centre's Arts in Early Learning Series is comprised of 3 new arts classes designed for children ages 2.5 - 4.5 years old and their caregiver. The Children's Art Centre is offering these classes in three different formats: as arts enrichment to our Early Childhood Education program, as community classes, and as on-site programs for local housing developments in partnership with Thrive in 5 (read more below). The Children's Art Centre developed these classes to offer the following to our participants:

An Innovative Arts-Based Curriculum: The curriculum of our classes was developed to integrate the arts with developmentally appropriate learning to promote school readiness. Children in our classes may learn about physics through creative movement and art, or explore sequencing and cause and effect through dramatic play.

Sustainable Teaching Staff: Our new classes are taught in-house by USES staff - Helen Schroeder is an EEC certified preschool teacher with deep knowledge, passion, and experience with integrating arts methods and early learning.

Lower Overall Cost: Our new class models enable us to provide quality classes at a lower cost.

Subsidized Spaces: As a non-profit community organization, an important part of USES' mission is serving low-income families. The Arts in Early Learning Series model allows the Children's Art Centre to provide more subsidized spaces for low-income families.

Investing in Quality Materials, Equipment, and Supplies: Already, our new class model has enabled us to invest in quality supplies and equipment to enhance our classes. We look forward to being able to further enhance our classes and children's learning by continuing to invest in quality materials in the future.

Greater Flexibility: We are excited to be able to offer busy families greater flexibility in scheduling in the future, including make-up classes and mini sessions.

What's Next? School-Aged Arts In Education

With the recent addition of a new Arts-In-Education Specialist, the Children's Art Centre is also working to develop and enhance our offering for school-aged children and tweens. Our new arts curriculum will integrate core subjects with the arts, be more mission-driven in its scope and reach, and focus on goals for quality arts instruction.

Overall, changes in Children's Art Centre programming fall under the category of building capacity - in our staff, curriculum, space, outcomes, and community outreach. With this increased capacity, we are excited to continue the legacy and mission of this historic neighborhood institution and to move the Children's Art Centre forward into the future. As always, we greatly welcome the feedback, suggestions, comments, and ideas from our participants. Have an idea on how to make the Children's Art Centre better? Please contact us by calling, emailing, or stopping by our space.

The Children's Art Centre's monthly newsletter has a new look! Readers can now click links to articles, registration information, and more, directly from this email!

The Children's Art Centre is thrilled to begin expanding access to our early childhood arts programming in the South End and Lower Roxbury community. In partnership with Thrive in 5, a citywide school readiness initiative, the CAC has begun to partner with local housing developments to offer on-site Arts in Early Learning classes to residents free of charge. Through these partnerships, low income families now have access to resources from the Children's Art Centre that teach parents how to engage and improve school-readiness skills though the arts. Participating families receive a voucher to attend a full session of classes at the Children's Art Centre and a family engagement pack full of activities and hands-on materials for continuing arts-based learning at home! Early in October, a pilot class was offered at Villa Victoria housing communityin collaboration with the non-profit Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), and in mid-November, a second program will take place at Mandela Homes Residents Cooperative Association.  

Along with our subsidized program slots, school partnerships, and free in-house arts enrichment offered to all USES youth program participants, this program serves as an important opportunity for the CAC to pursue its mission of making quality arts education accessible for all children and families in our community. By supporting the Children's Art Centre and our programs, you make this work possible - thank you!

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The temperature is dropping and the sun is setting earlier and earlier, but children still need a place to run, move, and be creative - have you visited our new Creative Playspace yet? We can't be more excited about the new materials and activities we've added to our placespace, and we're now making it easier than ever for you to discover this fun, safe, creative alternative to the playground.

You can now buy 4 visits at a time and interchange them between Tuesdays (creative movement play space) and Thursdays (dramatic play space). Sign up with a group of friends to have weekly play dates! When you run out of visits, just buy more. Click here for more information and photos of our two themed play spaces, and to register for your first four visits!