ARTS Education
Why Arts in Afterschool?
Most engaging and successful afterschool programs have well-designed art and music components. The arts are a key element to attracting young people, especially middle and high school students, to afterschool programs because they allow for individual expression and demonstration of their work. Afterschool Alliance issued an insightful brief that illustrates the importance of incorporating Arts enrichment activites in afterschool.
Sign Up now for Arts Now training and cohort
January 9th, 10am-12pm or 6-8pm

Arts Now combines Process-Based Art, Social and Emotional Learning, and Youth-Lead learning to make programming fun and easy for facilitators, directors, and everyone involved.
By signing up for this training, you’ll be signing up for our third Arts Now Cohort. Joining an Arts Now Cohort will give you access to PRYSM Arts curriculum and strategies for implementing process based, exciting, and meaningful afterschool artistic experiences that will change the way we look at informal learning! Register HERE for FREE
Check out Some of Our Arts Resources Below!
Curriculum
OregonASK provides a wide variety of curriculum within Arts and other subjects. You can see some of these options on our Curriculum page. For more Arts specific activities, view the list below:
Prysm covers four full weeks of art curriculum and programming for children of all ages. This comprehensive arts training and curriculum model process based, fun, and engaging projects that will give you everything you need to explore 2D and 3D visual art, puppetry and performance, sound and motion, as well as animation and film.
The curriculum provides practice for authentic, culturally responsive and youth-centered engagement strategies. After training completion, participants will receive the full four week curriculum (or chosen week of topic-based curriculum) with extensions to keep your art program fun and exciting for youth into the future.
Materials will be simple and accessible, and all activities have the out-of-school time format in mind to make optimal use of your informal space! Virtual modifications and extensions are included in the curriculum. Please contact rachel.kessler@oregonask.org for more information!
The Comics: Stories in Pictures and Words curriculum will take youth from developing a character, world, plot, comic panels, and structures of story telling, all through the creative activity of making comic books! This hands-on curriculum can be done as separate activities, creating simple panels and pages, or used over time as a way to create an entire comic book. The curriculum is flexible enough to use with any school age group, and will inspire you to do it again and again with new themes!
This 10 activity Curriculum will help facilitators make fun air-dry clay projects with school-age youth, starting with simple forms like coiled and pinch-pots, and work all the way up to more complex designs like animals, people, and even a flute. The curriculum also has tips for easy storage and cleanup, and will guide participants to make projects that reflect a long tradition of ceramics in Mesoamerican cultures.
Training
As with our curriculum, we also offer many different training opportunities throughout the year. To view our training calendar, take a look at our Training page or visit OregonASK Online to see all of our options for cohorts.
This training can be taken as individual sessions on a topic, or as an eight hour series provided in four parts over four weeks. The Prysm training sessions provide practice for authentic, culturally responsive and youth-centered engagement strategies.
After training completion, participants will receive the full four week curriculum with extensions to keep your art program fun and exciting for youth into the future. Materials will be simple and accessible, and all activities have the out-of-school time format in mind to make optimal use of your informal space! Virtual modifications and extensions are included in the curriculum. Please contact rachel.kessler@oregonask.org for more information!
Set 2 | CKC: Learning Environments and Curriculum | 1-3 Hours or 8 hours (four sessions)
For staff serving K-12th grade students
Set 1 | CKC: Learning Environments & Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-8th
This curriculum and training use air-dry clay to learn basic hand-building techniques for youth. Each skill can be used to make simple projects based on vessels, animals, human figures, and other forms found in Mesoamerican Art. These projects can be made with elementary aged students and middle school aged students given additional time to explore detail and function.
Set 1 | CKC: Learning Environments & Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-8th
This hands-on workshop will explore engaging and fun art activities for school age youth that go beyond crafts and explore learning about and creating amazing artwork!
Set 1 | CKC: Learning Environments & Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-8th
This hands-on workshop will give you great ideas for making the most of Art in your STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) program. We will explore best practices for integrating art and design projects into great STEM curriculum. Participants will leave with clear strategies for relating art and science through creative thinking.
Set 2 | CKC: Learning Environments and Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-12th grade students
Attendees will explore content, concepts, and lessons from the curriculum Comics: Stories in Pictures and Words. Participants will explore the elements of storytelling, character development, and design through hands-on activities.
Set 2 | CKC: Learning Environments and Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-8th grade students
Participants will explore strategies and tools to make works of art based on children’s story books. They will practice techniques with materials for making projects and discuss how teaching style may relate to how their students relate to reading.
Set 2 | CKC: Learning Environments and Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving K-8th grade students
This workshop will explore hands-on activities for preschool-aged appropriate art. We will use a variety of materials and techniques to develop motor, cognitive, and communicative skills. This fun workshop will also explore strategies for creating your own age appropriate art lessons.
Set 2 | CKC: Learning Environments and Curriculum | 2 Hours
For staff serving preschool students

Arts in Oregon Afterschool
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CASEL SEL Arts Alignments
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OAAE Standards
Want more information in regards to OAAE Standards? Reach out to Shannon Emory, the executive director of Metro Arts Inc., for any related questions.