Overview Link to this section
The visual and performing arts offer preschool children many ways to experience playful exploration, self-expression, creativity, and the joy of learning. The arts also support preschool children’s learning and development in varied and meaningful ways. Preschool children are interested in visual art, music, drama, and dance. Teachers have many opportunities to observe children’s enthusiasm for creating art. They provide experiences that promote artistic expression through their teaching practices. During the preschool period, the arts are more about the process (in the sense of participation, engagement, and involvement) than about the product, or the end result, of artistic activity. All children can participate in and enjoy the arts, including children with disabilities and other special needs. The arts are important in the world of preschoolers, as children have the chance to use their imaginations while learning. Through the arts, children draw upon their interests, experiences, and personalities as they express themselves, create with others, and participate in their preschool community.
Priority Standards Link to this section
What students will know, what students will do, and what thinking skills students will develop to apply and transfer artistic understandings that endure within the discipline, leverage deeper understandings, and/or support readiness for success at the next grade level.
In Pre-K, focus on these critical areas:
Notice, Respond, and Engage
This describes children’s interest and enjoyment in the arts, for example, in drawing, making sculpture, singing to music, acting, or dancing. To notice is to orient attention to something. To respond is to interact with the materials and methods of an art form. This response may be subtle (for example, a glance, a smile, or stopping an activity). To engage is to sustain attention and interest over time.
Develop Skills
This refers to the basic skills of performing, inventing, and creating through the arts. Examples of skills include the ability to draw a line or circle, to use a paintbrush, to follow the beat or tempo of a march, and to control arm and body movements in dance
Create, Invent, and Express
This describes how children use their skills to participate, express, invent, and create through the arts. Preschool children spend much of their time creating, inventing, and expressing themselves, and they use various means and approaches to do so.
Develop Skills to Create, Invent, and Express Through Drama
In contrast to visual art, music, and dance, skill development in drama overlaps with creative expression and hinges on early development of language, control of movement, and a conception of what it means to pretend.
Instruction: Signature Elements Link to this section
Below are signature elements of SFUSD Arts instruction that students should experience regularly throughout Pre-K as they develop as artists (visual artists, dancers, actors, musicians, and creative thinkers).
Using movement for relaxation
Try lying together in a comfortable space. If they want to close their eyes it is good to really focus on the body part. Have students: Move their toes on one foot and then the other. Repeat with their fingers. Try making a fist with both hands and then releasing. Squeeze and crunch up their face and then relax. You can repeat with different body parts. Once again, try not to go for too long as some young children will lose focus quite quickly.
Sing together every day
Singing promotes joy and inclusion in your classroom. It also helps students develop language skills, learn to focus, listen carefully and repeat what they've heard. Just like reading to your students, singing songs with them helps to boost their vocabulary and language skills. Sing often. Sing the directions, sing at transition times. Sing with recorded music, with a simple guitar or uke accompaniment (if you can), or acapella. Sing the songs you all love over and over. Sing in different languages. Sing old favorites, like Twinkle Twinkle, The ABC Song, Naranja Dulce, Happy Birthday, Las Mañanitas, Apples and Bananas (which is also a great chance to practice vowel sounds:) Find new favorites that you and your students love. Remember that little voices are high-pitched! Try to sing higher so your students can match your pitch.
Look at and talk about art together
Support your students’ language development and critical thinking skills by talking about art images together. Choose an image to look at together (the above link is a digital image bank, but you could look at book illustrations, student artwork, or any other compelling image/picture in your classroom environment.) To guide your conversation, use the VTS protocol or See, Think, Wonder protocol.
Reflection Questions Link to this section
- How are students' developmental needs, communities, and experiences being reflected and honored, or how could they be?
- What opportunities do you see for developing equitable access & demand, inquiry, collaboration, and assessment for learning?
- What are the implications for your own practice? What strengths can you build upon? What will you do first?
Want more?
CA PTKLF Visual and Performing Arts - The Preschool and Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations (PTKLF) provide guidance on the wide range of visual and performing arts knowledge and skills that children age three to five and a half typically attain when attending a high-quality early education program. Teachers can use the PTKLF to guide their observations and set learning goals for children and plan for developmentally appropriate, equitable, inclusive practice, including how to design learning environments and create learning experiences that promote children’s learning and development in the Visual and Performing Arts domain.
Contact: Ana Otero, TSA, Early Education Arts Coordinator, TK Visual Art Teacher - oteroa@sfusd.edu
This page was last updated on May 2, 2025