Preschool & Elementary Teachers

Since 2006, our residency artists have teamed with classroom teachers and more than 112,000 students to create curriculum-based art that was shared by over 343,000 community members! Muse Machine brings learning to life through arts-integration residencies in schools across the Greater Miami Valley Region.

Part 1: Create Residency Plan

After the school selects its Muse artist, participating teachers and artist meet to discuss the school’s educational goals, selected Ohio’s Learning Standards, student participation and creative ideas for helping students to experience curricular concepts in new ways and build knowledge through the arts.

All students can benefit from involvement in the artist residency. Often teachers choose a segment of the school population to participate, such as one grade level or several grade levels. Depending on the size of your school, you could involve the entire school population. Residency time frames are determined by the number of participating classrooms and the size of the planned project. Once participating classrooms are identified, a customized schedule is created for the residency by the artist and participating teachers. Your residency dates do not need to be consecutive. You may choose the dates that best serve your teachers and students. The fee for the Preschool and Elementary Program is $450 per day. Typical residency length is five days (shorter visits may also be available).

Residency topics cover the entire curriculum and can dramatically fortify student understanding of challenging subject areas. “When we looked at the strand that we focused on with Muse Machine,” said teacher Kris Brush, “78% of kids across the state passed that particular strand of the test — but 98% of our kids passed… 98%!”

Muse artists have designed hundreds of residency programs. Find examples of past topics below:

  1. Language Arts

    Alphabet

    Author’s Purpose

    Capitalization, Punctuation and Spelling

    Character Traits

    Editing and Revising Strategies

    Fact/Opinion

    Figurative Language

    Inferencing

    Letter Sounds

    Literary Genre

    Main Idea

    Mythology

    Non-Fiction Text Features

    Paragraph Structure

    Parts of Speech

    Parts of a Story

    Phonics

    Prefixes/Suffixes

    Reading Comprehension Strategies (Questions, Word Detection, Connectors and Literary Illuminations)

    Reading Fluency

    Roman and Greek Root Words

    Sentence Structure

    Six Traits of Good Writing

    Structure of an Essay

    Types of Writing (Informative, Opinion, Narrative)

    Vowels/Consonants

  2. Math

    Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division

    Area and Perimeter Associative, Commutative and Distributive Properties

    Coordinate Plane

    Even and Odd Numbers

    Fact Families

    Fractions

    Geometry

    Graphing

    Money

    Numbers

    Number Lines

    Order of Operations

    Place Value

    Plot Sequence

    Re-Grouping

    Shapes, Lines and Angles

    Skip Counting

    Telling Time

    Two/Three Dimensional Shapes

    Patterns

  3. Science

    Animal Adaptations

    Animal Habitats

    Biomes

    Classifications of Living Things

    Elements of Sound

    Energy (Sound, Heat, Magnetism, Movement)

    Five Animal Groups

    Forces of Motion

    Landforms

    Life Cycles of Humans, Animals and Plants

    Living/Non-living

    Parts and Systems of the Body

    Patterns in Space

    Rock Cycle

    Scientific Method

    Solar System

    Solids, Liquids and Gases

    Space Exploration

    Types of Rock and Minerals

    Water Cycle

    Weather (Wind Speed, Temperature, Clouds, Effects on Living Things)

  4. Social Studies

    Adaptations of Native Americans

    African American History

    American Symbols

    American/World Inventors

    Cultural Symbols

    Diversity

    Early Colonial Settlers

    Economics

    Famous Americans

    Famous Ohioans

    Map Reading Skills

    Mesopotamia

    Native Americans

    Ohio History

    Revolutionary War

    Seven Continents

    Three Branches of Government

    Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities

    World Civilizations and Geography

    World Cultures

    World Oceans

  5. Other

    Beatitudes (Catholic)

    Benedictine Values (Catholic)

    Character Education Pillars (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, Citizenship, The Golden Rule)

    Choices and Outcomes

    Citizenship

    Elements of the PAX Behavior System

    Friendship

    Gifts from the Holy Spirit (Catholic)

    God’s Creations (Catholic)

    History of the Montessori Teaching Methods (Montessori)

    Mental Health

    Physical Health

    Positive Behavior Intervention Support

    Reconciliation (Catholic)

    Respect for Self, Others and Environment

    Sacraments (Catholic)

    Story of Jericho (Catholic)

    Stress Reduction

    Teamwork

Part 2: The Residency

During the residency, the artist works with participating teachers and students in their classrooms. The artist introduces the key elements of his or her art form as well as creative ways to use that art form to address the residency’s educational goals. Residencies take many forms, the artists, teachers and students may write original music and songs, choreograph new dances, write and perform original theatre pieces or create works of visual art that bring new meaning and understanding to Ohio’s New Learning Standards.

Part 3: Share New Knowledge

Each residency culminates in a public sharing of what has been created by the artist, teachers and students during the residency. In a culminating activity, students present the original art they have developed during their residency. It is a true celebration of children and the power of arts integration to help find deeper meaning in their studies and connect them to the joy of learning  components.

Thank you for your interest in the Muse Machine Preschool & Elementary Program! For more information, click here!

Resident Artist Bios

See our preschool and elementary program in action in the classroom:

The Muse Machine preschool and elementary program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Accessibility

For information about accessibility at teacher programs, out-of-school performances, in-school performances or residencies, click here.