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Wolf Trap
Institute for Early Learning through the Arts
DeltaARTS is the only regional affiliate of this international arts-integrated program serving Arkansas, Western Tennessee, and Mississippi. Our Wolf Trap certified trainers use music, dance, and acting activities to reinforce academic lessons. This program not only helps children build critical academic skills and a love of the arts, but also includes a teacher training component so teachers can learn new
active-learning techniques.
For decades, DeltaARTS’ Wolf Trap Artists have provided Wolf Trap residencies for preschools and early elementary schools throughout the region. A Wolf Trap residency is a partnership between a certified classroom teacher and a trained teaching artist. They work together to develop arts-based lesson plans that enhance the teacher’s current curricular needs while offering the teacher hands-on professional development when the artist works with her and her students in the classroom. The teaching artist models best practices leading arts experiences, and the teacher sees how her students participate. Gradually, the teaching artist helps the teacher become more comfortable using arts-based Wolf Trap experiences for whatever topic or curriculum standard he or she is teaching.
These residencies are scheduled over five class periods for five consecutive days or 14 days over several weeks for a more in-depth learning experience to support academic goals and a love of learning.
Before the classroom sessions begin, the program begins with a planning visit between the DeltaARTS
Wolf Trap teaching artist and the teacher. The pre-visit planning meeting allows the teaching artist and the teacher time to discuss ways the teaching artist’s art form can connect with the state curriculum standards that the students are currently studying. In this meeting, the team also selects an age-appropriate book to connect to the teaching artist’s lessons.
The classroom sessions then take place and are followed up with a debrief session between the teacher
and the teaching artist to review how the classes went and to discuss the teaching techniques used. This program can be done annually for any preschool or K – 2 nd grade classroom.