Start With The Arts
“But I'm not creative!” ... “What about the mess?” ... “I've been doing arts activities for years and I can't think of anything new.”
Start With The Arts is a program with ideas for you! If you know home child care, you know it's a demanding job with long hours and lots of challenges. Sometimes it can feel pretty isolating. VSA Vermont brings a warm, creative Start With The Arts instructor to 36 home child care sites each year, representing every county of Vermont.
Our instructors present great childrens books and exciting arts based activities to help children of all abilities relate to stories with projects in drama, music, dance and visual arts. Children learn to love books because they can bring the stories to life. They gain confidence in skills they'll need in preschool and kindergarten and a love of creative expression that will stay with them for life. Child care providers get new ideas for inclusive arts and literacy activities that make sense for home child care settings. Plus they get credits toward their required Core Competencies in Teaching and Learning. Every site gets free books and art materials and curriculum resources to keep. There's no cost for this program to child care providers or parents.
Start With The Arts consists first of 16 weekly 1-hour sessions at each site with literacy and arts activities in visual arts, drama, dance and music, exploring each artistic genre. Each of the lessons presented for children includes the presentation of a book plus developmentally appropriate arts activities to extend the learning. Childcare providers also receive 3 monthly 2-hour trainings outside of childcare hours in neighboring support pairs at local libraries. Each childcare provider receives weekly follow up visits for a month, 1 after-hours training and then monthly follow up visits for an additional 3 months.
The combination of on-site experiential modeling with children and after-hours focused trainings allows us to present concepts related to literacy and art with reference to real situations childcare providers have observed with the children in their care.
VSA Vermont has been approved by the Vermont Agency of Human Services Child Development Division Northern Lights Career Development Center to grant 20 Professional Development credits applicable to Vermont's required Core Competencies for Early Educators, 6 credits of which can be used as advanced training needed to support applications for Specialized Home Care status.
Providers can apply these credits towards the STARS program as well. We encourage providers to contact the Vermont Childcare Providers Association Accreditation Project (VCCPA) for help with the paperwork requirements
Get a complete list of Start With The Arts Participating Providers.
Start With The Arts Library Outreach Programs
This is a program to help low-income, school age students maintain literacy skills during summer months when they are away from school.
This program brings arts-based literacy activities to children at 25 home-based and community-based childcare sites visited by library outreach programs in five regions during summer months. It will also bring training in the use of arts-based literacy activities to 25 childcare workers and 5 library staff and volunteer members.
The overall goals of this project are:
- to foster steady engagement with books in children during out of school time hours;
- to increase the knowledge of and use of arts-based literacy activities by childcare and library staff in order to help children maintain literacy skills when not in school.
VSA Vermont's seasoned Start With The Arts staff will partner with staff at libraries and bookmobiles in five regions of the state, visiting five childcare sites at least eight times for an hour each time to offer arts-based literacy activities to children and training in the use of arts based literacy activities to childcare workers.
"At first, I read because I had to. Then, in the summer I began reading because I wanted to."
Program Participant
For more information about Start With The Arts and our Start With The Arts Library Outreach Programs, contact Peggy Rainville, Program Director, at (802) 655-7735 or at peggy@vsavt.org
