 As a parent, educator, or anyone who cares about kids’ well-being, you’ve probably noticed how many children are struggling emotionally these days. The mental health crisis isn’t just a
headline—it’s real, and it’s showing up in classrooms, at home, and in everyday interactions. But a recent study at the Medical University of South Carolina offered a refreshing, hopeful approach: group art therapy delivered directly in schools. This isn’t therapy as we typically think of it. There are no couches or long waits for appointments. Instead, it’s a 7-week program* where students come together during the school day with a certified art therapist to process their internal landscape through art—something most kids naturally gravitate toward. In the first year of the initiative, 280 elementary students participated, and the results were powerful. The children showed noticeable improvements in their emotional well-being, especially those who had internal struggles like anxiety or sadness. On average, symptoms dropped by nearly two points, which is significant in clinical terms. What stood out even more was that every child finished the program, and nearly every parent and teacher wanted it to continue. Kids had a safe space to express themselves, and parents felt relief knowing their child was getting support—without jumping through insurance or referral hoops. This model makes these services affordable and scalable. But more importantly, it meets kids where they are. In a world where so many barriers stand between families and mental health care, this model feels not only smart—it feels right. To see how art therapy can be implemented in your school or learn more about the Creative Arts Therapy Initiative (CATI) contact MUSC Arts in Healing at [email protected]. *Notes: Since the article, the program has expanded to 10-weeks and has impacted over 1,500 students. Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389751837_Addressing_Gaps_in_Pediatric_Mental_H ealthcare_by_Removing_Barriers_A_School-Based_Integrated_Model_for_Group_Art_Therapy
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 Are your students wiggly? Are they full of energy? Are you ready to pull out your hair? Try these easy dance activities to help diffuse some of the energy your students are exhibiting.
I am Cyndi Waddell and I have been teaching dance education in SC for 30 years. I feel your pain and understand that this time of year is stressful, to say the least. I have developed some easy to implement dance activities to use up some of the energy found in every classroom right now. All activities can be used on multiple days by increasing the difficulty. In each activity feel free to add more or less locomotor skills, create patterns with the skills, increase or decrease the speed at which you call out the skills. Not only will these activities get the wiggles out, but increase focus and stamina. First and foremost, set some parameters for the dance activities. One of the main reasons dance activities fail is lack of clear expectations. Just like you manage student work and behavior during a lesson for the classroom, you must do so for movement and energy levels during dance, as well. Managing movement takes observation and immediate feedback for positive and negative behavior. Do not be afraid to have someone sit out of an activity to observe specific classmates who are moving safely and reflect on how to move appropriately while dancing. The reflection spot is a wonderful motivator since most students really want to move. Your expectations should specify that energy levels should be at a 4-5 on a 10 point scale. Discuss appropriate energy levels for inside vs. outside. This discussion should include expectations for appropriate noise levels, as well. Now, for the fun stuff. Try out Level Up Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS). Level one is a round of RPS with the teacher vs. the class. As students lose, they sit down until all are beaten. Level two is similar to level one, but instead of sitting down when out, students “blurt” out a locomotor skill and everyone in the class does that skill. You determine when you want a round to end by saying “Ready, Set, and Freeze”. Then, you can begin RPS again and have new students “blurt” out skills. I will list locomotor skills at the end of this post. Level 3 involves partner work. Students pair up and play RPS while a piece of music plays. The loser chooses the locomotor skill that both partners will perform in space. Students will play multiple times until the song ends. These activities work well for students in Kindergarten - 4th/5th grade. Another fun activity is The Birthday Game. You will be using locomotor skills again in this movement game. Call out a month in the year. Students who have a birthday during the chosen month stand up and choose a locomotor skill that everyone will perform. Play some music and let all students move around in the space performing the chosen skill. If there are more than one person with a birthday in a month, use this opportunity to make a pattern with several locomotor skills. Eventually, your students will be able to choose from several different designated skills and make a pattern themselves. Play until you have gone through all of the months of the year. This activity works well for Kindergarten - 4th/5th grade. You can make this activity more or less challenging by increasing the number of skills chosen and whether patterns are designed by you or the students. Finally, Freeze Dance is a winner every time. I have added several things to make this activity more challenging. Instead of just freezing when the music stops, I have students sit down. The last one seated is out. I usually play multiple rounds and don’t get students out so they have a chance to get some energy out. Eventually, I get students out and quickly complete the game so students can start moving again.This activity is appropriate for all ages. With older students, I would challenge them to complete multiple tasks before I stop the music, eg., before I stop the music, alternate hopping on one foot 4 times each, jump across the room, gallop and alternate the lead foot 4 times. If you have some shy movers, let them create the challenges reminding them that safety is first and foremost in this activity. The possibilities for dance in the classroom are endless as long as clear expectations are set prior to the activities. I have years of fun and engaging activities to share, whether it be a simple movement activity or a fully planned dance integration lesson. I would love to share my knowledge with you! Feel free to reach out via phone or email and happy dancing! Cyndi Waddell [email protected]
its pathways are overgrown with all the knowledge you have to have already acquired
just to figure out in which direction the road goes. You can get lost in Poetry. And, in fact, Poetry is designed to lose you. As Marianne Moore—the famously thorny and difficult poet of American Modernism—says in her poem “Poetry,”: “I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.” Poetry, says the dominant culture all of our students have grown up in, is not for you. Or: Poetry is not for you. It’s hard to tell which is worse. Even the students who think they might be poets are suspicious of the word Poetry. “I just like to write what I feel,” they say. They shrug. They dismiss Poetry in favor of…what?...not the poem (they haven’t met the poem, yet) but maybe the act of writing. Of making the shape of the word that gets the feeling out of their body and onto the page. Many students when they first come into my class tell me that writing a poem is a kind of therapy for them. “I take everything I’m feeling and put it on the page,” they say. “Ok, yeah,” I answer, “and then, just like in therapy, all your feelings make more sense, right?” They blink at me at this point, because the answer to that question is no, of course. After art, we do not feel better so much as we feel more. Ok, but so, here’s the point: as Marianne Moore (who was also famously tongue-in-cheek, was a huge baseball fan, wore unironic tri-cornered hats and suggested naming the new Ford Edsel the Utopian Turtletop, The Anticipator, The Intelligent Whale) goes on to say in “Poetry”— “if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—/the raw material of poetry in/ all its rawness, and/ that which is on the other hand,/ genuine, then you are interested in poetry.” The they Moore refers to here—the “half poets,” “autocrats,” and “literalists of the imagination”—are everyone who would tell you what Poetry is, rather than just show you a poem. So, that’s where we start; I show my students a poem. Usually a short poem. Something concrete about bats or geese or getting lost and then seeing the moon. Sometimes the poem even rhymes, but most of the time it doesn’t. Rhymes don’t matter when you can speak rhythm out loud. That’s what we do. We read it out loud. “Oh,” they say, “yeah, I know what that is, my teacher in third grade, or my mother at bedtime, or my granddad when he can’t get the car started and we have to wait for the tow truck, used to say something like that to me.” And that’s it. What they recognize is something they used to do to while away the time after recess or before bed when there was nothing more to accomplish than the practice of being human. They recognize something that came to them when they were most themselves and made them more. The antidote to Poetry is the poem. A child knows a poem with their knees and elbows. They know a poem with their earlobes and with the way it makes them wiggle or want to look out the window and see if they can spot some more. Our job as educators is to help them recognize what it is they already see and give them the vocabulary to describe it. Look, there! A wild poem—let us observe its habits; let us speak about its dappled skin. What does it eat? How does it go? When it lies down to sleep what dreams fill its head and why are they so very much like our own? A real toad in an imaginary garden, as Marianne Moore would call it. Let’s all spill out into the sunshine and see if we can mimic how it hops.  For several decades, summer Arts Teacher Institutes have been offered by SCDE, providing valuable opportunities for professional development. While some already know about these institutes, it seems that most of our state’s arts educators have never even heard of them—and I was one of them! As a high school music educator before joining the SCDE, I had no idea these institutes existed. Well, they are fantastic—and
they’re FREE! Are you an arts teacher in your first three years of teaching? Check out South Carolina Arts Leadership for Success Academy (SCALSA) Want to make your lessons stronger and more engaging? Explore Curriculum Leadership in the Arts (CLIA). Are you a dance or art teacher? Consider the Dance Technique or Visual Arts Teacher Institute. Want to take a deeper dive into arts integration? Register for Arts Integration Leaders. Teach at a STEAM school or want to learn more? Look into Muse STEAM Institute. Administrator? Join Joint Arts Administrators. These institutes and more (Arts Assessment, Design Lab, Gifted and Talented, Visual Arts Literacy, Strategic Arts Planning) are just at your fingertips. JSYK…most of the institutes award graduate credit (or recertification points) and only take a week in June. (Yes, housing and meals are included!) As you might guess, space is limited. I encourage all arts educators to take advantage of these Arts Teacher Institutes. They are designed to empower you, enhance your teaching practice, and ultimately benefit your students. For more information on how to participate, please click the button below!  February 10-14, 2025 is South Carolina Arts Advocacy Week, an annual celebration of the incredible impact of the arts in our schools, our communities, and the lives of every citizen in the Palmetto State. When speaking with educators about advocacy, I’m often asked, “Where do I start?” With increasing responsibilities and pressures during (and after) the school day, trying to find the time and energy to advocate seems daunting. In this blog, I’d like to share some easy ways that advocacy can fit into what you already do as educators.
Always share a story. Data and logic are important parts of advocacy, but when you combine logic with emotion, you get an all-star advocacy message. This is where educators come in. Stories are an art form, but they are also a powerful tool for advocacy. Your stories can help keep people (students, teachers, families) at the center of our message about arts education. While we’d love for you to share these stories with decision makers, that’s not the only way to advocate. Moving the needle on public opinion is a big part of our work – and you can do this just as easily by sharing a personal story on social media, or even with your school colleagues and school leaders. Be the example. Remember that you and your students are who we are advocating for. This means that you will always play an important role in advocacy, even if you are not the one making the “ask.” Let us know what you’re up to so we can elevate your stories for a larger impact. Let us know the challenges you face, so we can bring them to elected officials on your behalf. Our conversations with legislators are always the most successful when we begin them by referencing a community connection — this gives life to the message. Create opportunities for advocacy. Because you are the example, and because your story matters most, your work is full of advocacy opportunities. Remember that legislators only spend three days each week (and about six months each year) in Columbia. This means that you don’t need to travel to the State House to connect with them. Work with your administration to arrange an opportunity for them to tour your school and see arts education in real time. Invite them to student performances to experience the results firsthand. Take a video of arts learning in action, post on social media, and tag elected officials. Want to go the extra mile? Let them hear directly from students by sending thank you cards during Arts Advocacy Week. This week, I encourage you to reimagine what arts advocacy looks like as an educator. As I said at the start – you are already doing the work, we just want others to know about it. Continue to share stories about the impact of arts education, be the example that creates local relevance, and create opportunities to elevate your work. By doing these, you play a critical role in our advocacy work. It’s as easy as A,B,C.  Here at PSAE, we love Arts Integration in the classroom.
Did you know that you can also blend arts activities into your winter break? The holiday season is the perfect time to gather as a family and create lasting memories through art. With a little creativity and a few supplies, you can infuse your home with festive charm and spend quality time together. Here are some fun, holiday-themed arts activities to brighten the season: 1. Holiday Themed Charades This is a favorite game in our house. Write simple holiday themed words or shapes on slips of paper for younger kids who may be working on reading skills. Write names of holiday oriented movies for older kids and adults. Take turns pulling slips of paper and acting out the words on the paper. Trust me, it’s truly a fun time watching your kids work through how to pantomime things like “snow” or “elf.” It’s also very fun to watch older family members act out the plot to “Home Alone!” 2. Gingerbread House Creations I see gingerbread kits everywhere around the holidays! We may not be the best at assembling complex cookie villages, but my boys love to use candy and icing. This year, we chose a simple kit – a “Tree-A-Saurus Rex.” Perfect for my dino-loving kiddos. Not only is this activity deliciously fun, but it also encourages creativity and teamwork. 3. Family Sing-Alongs You don’t have to play a musical instrument or be able to read music for a family sing-along to be fun! Enthusiasm and a fun attitude are what makes a family sing-along magical. Simply ask “Alexa” to play your favorite song, grab your kiddos, and dance like crazy. Use this stage trick from an old comedy performer, commitment to the bit is what will bring out the family fun. These holiday arts activities are more than just projects; they’re opportunities to bond, share laughs, and create memories. By dedicating time to creative fun, you’ll be building a collection of cherished family traditions to revisit year after year. What holiday-themed arts activities does your family enjoy? Share your ideas in the comments below! Integrating the Arts Through Autumnal Foodways: Celebrating South Carolina’s Rich Culinary Heritage11/11/2024  As the holiday season approaches, food takes center stage in celebrations across the Palmetto State. From traditional autumn crops like pumpkins, apples, and pecans to the hearty flavors of sweet potatoes and okra, each ingredient we enjoy today has roots that
stretch deep into our state’s rich history. Working as the Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Morris Center for Lowcountry Heritage, I had the privilege of hosting The Food We Celebrate, on loan from the South Carolina State Museum. This exhibit provided a remarkable look at South Carolina’s iconic foods and reshaped my understanding of their cultural significance, especially during the holiday season. South Carolina’s foodways are a blend of traditions from Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and European settlers, each contributing to the dishes and ingredients we hold dear. Sweet potatoes, for instance, which feature prominently in holiday pies and casseroles, were cultivated by Native Americans long before becoming a staple in Southern cooking. Similarly, okra, an ingredient in hearty stews, was brought to the region by enslaved Africans who carried their culinary traditions across the Atlantic, helping shape the foundation of Southern cuisine. Exploring resources like Taste the State: South Carolina's Signature Foods, Recipes, and Their Stories by David S. Shields and Kevin Mitchell has deepened my appreciation for these foods’ origins. This book highlights how many of the ingredients we enjoy today and tells a story of resilience and adaptation. Whether baking a pecan pie, stirring an okra stew, or roasting sweet potatoes, each dish is a celebration of our state’s agricultural heritage and the diverse communities that helped shape South Carolina’s culinary identity. While you are celebrating this season, let’s honor that legacy by recognizing the cultural significance behind every bite. “I’m not a dancer!” If that thought has ever crossed your mind when considering dance integration, don’t worry! Dance integration isn’t about perfect pirouettes or flashy jazz hands—it’s about using movement creatively to make learning more engaging and memorable. Let’s swap fear for curiosity and explore simple ways to bring dance into your classroom. Dance isn’t just for the studio or the stage; it’s a powerful tool for learning. When students move their bodies, they engage multiple senses, reinforce concepts, and build connections. Wherever you are on your dance integration journey, here are a few tips to make it feel less scary and more approachable: Start Small You don’t have to jump into a 45-minute dance integration lesson immediately. Instead, ease into it with small, manageable steps. Start by incorporating simple movement strategies, perhaps ones you picked up at PSAE’s Arts Integration Conference, as an activator or check for understanding. For example, try the Move It! Shape It! strategy: ● Give students a vocabulary word or concept to express in movement. ● Play music and students move to express vocabulary or a concept through movement. ● When the music stops, students freeze in a body shape. ● Repeat with different terms. Even a few minutes of dance can enhance engagement and learning. Utilize Resources There are plenty of resources to support you on your dance integration journey. Reach out to a dance specialist, integration coach, professional learning community, or a colleague as thought partners. Collaborating on curriculum connections, discussing dance strategies, and implementation will help refine your ideas and strengthen your plan. The ArtsNOW website also offers a wealth of tools for dynamic arts-integrated learning, including unit guides, single lesson plans, and video modules. With these resources and a supportive network, your dance integration journey will feel more manageable and rewarding. No Dance Skills Required. Successfully facilitating a dance integration activity or lesson doesn’t require special dance skills. What’s important is knowing the learning target, standard, core content vocabulary, and a few key dance terms. These key terms fall under the elements of dance: Body, Space, Time, and Energy. Key terms for each element include: ● Body: Body Shapes, Movement, Locomotor and Non-locomotor ● Space: levels, size, pathways ● Time: tempo, beat ● Energy: qualities of movement, force As the facilitator, your role is to guide the process of creating, performing, responding to, and connecting dance with other content areas. Here are some content ideas with key vocabulary: ● Students create symmetrical and asymmetrical body shapes at high, middle, and low levels. ● Students create a 3 movement sequence that retells events from the beginning, middle, and end of a story using locomotor and non-locomotor movements. ● Students explore movements for different types of weather focusing on movement qualities (vibratory, heavy, sudden, smooth) ● Students create movements that depict key events during westward expansion utilizing changes in tempo, at least two movement qualities, and pathways. With a thoughtfully designed integration activity and a solid understanding of essential dance terminology, you'll be leading learning through dance — no fancy footwork necessary. You don’t need a dance studio or fancy costumes to integrate dance. Remember to begin with small steps, utilize available resources, and deepen your understanding of essential dance terminology. As you embark on your integration journey, let curiosity and courage take the place of fear. Dance integration isn’t about achieving perfection; it’s about fostering expression, engagement, and creating meaningful learning experiences for your students.  If you are going back and forth on how many educators and administrators to send to the Palmetto State Arts Education Conference from your school or district, I’m here to be your biggest cheerleader and shout, “GO TEAM!” As a former visual arts teacher for 11 years and current principal of a Title I elementary school in my fifth year, I knew sending a team from Fairforest Elementary School would allow our entire school community to reap the benefits from the arts conference. FES is a STEAM School with various “players” having their own strengths and talents. My goal was to get a team to the conference, let them loose to attend sessions they felt would benefit them as educators and to jot down all the ways the sessions they attended would benefit our students in the future. This past year I sent our STEAM Coordinator, Reading Coach, a fourth grade teacher, visual arts teacher, and myself. After sharing about the sessions each of us attended following the conference, I was blown away by the excitement and rigorous discussions on how FES could increase arts integration in grade level classrooms to foster the knowledge, skills, and characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate.
This year, we are headed to the conference again with a NEW team, full of grade level and visual and performing arts teachers, coaches, and administration as we hope to gain innovative insights, lessons, strategies, and more through the amazing arts sessions offered. If you’re not sure who to send or how to guide your team, no worries! I’ve got you! My first suggestion is to send one-two grade level teachers and at least one-two arts teachers. My next suggestion is to send at least one administrator and/or coach. And last, have a plan for when you get there based on your school’s vision and mission. FES is planning to use the T.E.A.M. (Together Everyone Achieves More) acronym with a twist for the conference and for when we return. Each teammate will follow the below “T.E.A.M Game Plan.” T - Together: Take notes on how you and your grade level/department can integrate ideas, concepts, practices shared. This will allow you to return to school and work “together” during grade level planning with Leadership on arts integration so students can make connections across content areas and foster the knowledge, skills, and characteristics of the Profile of the SC Graduate. E - Everyone: Create and implement an arts-integrated activity/practice that you learned during the PSAE Conference and present on the session and how you implemented the activity/practice in your class to “everyone” during a faculty meeting. A - Achievement: Brainstorm ways in which you can integrate the arts in your classrooms and how you could assess student achievement in these areas. Rubrics focusing on the 4C’s (creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking) would be a good starting point. Plan to also gather quantitative data from your students on whether they feel having the hands-on, visual or performing arts integration component allowed them to gain a better understanding of the content taught. M - More: “More” encompasses so much for FES as we are always focused on continuous improvement. Following the conference, the team will discuss how we can use what we learned to do “more” for our families regarding parent engagement and education. We’ll share take-aways to enhance our STEAM Nights as our focus is to teach parents how to build their child(ren)’s reading comprehension skills through questioning and how to foster the 4 C’s (creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking) through hands-on STEAM activities. We will also discuss artists-in-residence we met at the conference and share connections made with other schools that we feel we could reach out to for ideas, support, and advice on arts integration. So, “GO TEAM” this year to PSAE’s conference if you can! The benefits of seeing 25+ sessions instead of just 6 by taking more “players” will allow your school to gain many more innovative and engaging ways to serve your school community. By taking a team, your school WINS! |
AuthorMichelle Robinson is the program manager for Arts in Healing the Medical University of South Carolina. Follow the program on socials @muscarts! AuthorCyndi Waddell is a native South Carolinian and graduated from Columbia College in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a major in Dance. She also holds a Master of Education degree from Converse College. After graduation she danced professionally in Cleveland, Ohio and New York throughout the late 1980’s. After returning to South Carolina in 1990, she began teaching dance education in the public schools and currently is the dance specialist at Stone Academy of Communication Arts in Greenville County. In the course of her career she has supported arts education through service on the writing committee for the South Carolina Dance Standards, as the President of the South Carolina Dance Association, as South Carolina Dance Educator of the Year, as a grant reader for the South Carolina Arts CommissionSouth Carolina Department of Education and as a participant and facilitator for the Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts and the South Carolina Arts Leadership for Success Academy, and as a member on the National Dance Education Organization’s Mentorship Committee. AuthorSarah Blackman is a poet, fiction and creative non-fiction author originally from the Washington D.C. area. She graduated from Washington College, summa cum laude, with a BA in English, minor Creative Writing, and earned her MFA from the University of Alabama in 2007 with a primary concentration in fiction and a secondary concentration in poetry. Her poetry and prose has been published in a number of journals and magazines, including The Georgia Review, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, and American Poetry Review among others. Blackman is the co-fiction editor of DIAGRAM, the fiction editor of Cherry Tree and the founding editor of Crashtest, an online magazine for high school age writers which she edits alongside the students at the Fine Arts Center. Additionally, she is a fiction reviewer for Kirkus. Her story collection Mother Box was the winner of the 2012 Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize and was published by FC2 in 2013. Her novel, Hex, was published by the same press in April, 2016. In 2018 she joined the board of FC2 and in 2020 she was awarded a South Carolina Humanities Individual Artist Fellowship. She is represented by the Wylie Agency. AuthorRoger E. Simpson, Jr. is the Education Associate for the Visual & Performing Arts for the SC Department of Education. Prior to this position, Roger worked as a music educator in SC schools. 
AuthorJeff Robinson is the Executive Director of SC Arts Alliance, which is SC's champion for arts support. Jeff is also the Chair of PSAE's Board! 
AuthorThis blog was compiled by Melody Powell with contributions from Chris Crabb and Katie Kerechanin. AuthorJenny Kabool has been the Executive Director of Palmetto State Arts Education since 2022. A life-long lover of all things theater, she has performed on stage in musicals, as a part of an improv team, and as a storyteller. She is mom to two awesome dino-loving boys. 
AuthorKayleigh Vaughn is the Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Morris Center for Lowcountry Heritage and serves as the treasurer for the Palmetto State Arts Education board. With a passion for South Carolina’s cultural history, she curates exhibits that celebrate the state’s diverse heritage and artistic traditions. 
AuthorChristopher Crabb is a Project Manager with ArtsNOW and serves on the board for PSAE (Palmetto State Arts Education). Over his 20-year career in public education, Chris has served as a dance educator, arts-integration instructional coach, arts grant manager, and district coordinator of performing and fine arts. He was the 2022 Arts Administrator of the Year (SC Art Education Association) and a Top 5 Finalist for Beaufort County District Teacher of the Year. 
AuthorKerrie Kish is the principal at Fairforest Elementary, PSAE’s 2023 STEAM School of Excellence. Before transitioning into administration 9 years ago, she taught visual arts for 11 years at the elementary and middle school levels. Mrs. Kish serves on PSAE’s Board of Directors and avidly supports learners and leaders through STEAM integration. 
AuthorMelody Powell is a 3rd grade teacher at Stone Academy, an arts integrated elementary school in Greenville County. Outside of the classroom, Melody serves on the board for PSAE (Palmetto State Arts Education), works with the ABC Institute as a part of the Teacher as Curator cohort, and is an active teaching partner with the SMARTarts program (a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Arts Council). 
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