USF Sarasota-Manatee hosted a back to school reading day for elementary school kids.
In the spirit of getting back to school, kids played with origami, circus tricks and stuffed animals at USF Sarasota-Manatee’s reading day.
The Florida Center for Partnerships in Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT), a group at USF Sarasota-Manatee, works to integrate arts into teaching. The Circus Arts Conservatory, Florida Studio Theatre and Origami Air Art Studio taught students from kindergarten through third grade science, math and literature through different activities.
“See how engaged kids are when arts are integrated into learning,” said Denise Davis-Colton, director of PAInT. “We’re getting parents and families engaged before the children go back to school to see what PAInT will bring to their school.”
PAInT works in schools across the state, including in Sarasota and Manatee counties.
Florida lawmakers approved legislation to create the statewide PAInT center at USFSM in 2016. It has worked with other colleges and arts organizations to train educators in arts-integrated instruction and help them implement their own programs.
Arts-integrated instruction is a teaching method that combines the arts with non-arts lessons to help students understand and retain academic material. Studies show that students’ comprehension improves significantly when classroom lessons are integrated with the arts.
USFSM launched PAInT as a campus organization in 2012.
This story comes from Aspirations Journalism, an initiative of The Patterson Foundation and Sarasota Herald-Tribune to inform, inspire, and engage the community to take action on issues related to Age-Friendly Sarasota, Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, National Council on Aging and the Suncoast Nursing Action Coalition.
