Creative Minds - Out of School is an exciting new program created to engage K-5 children in high-quality art exploration and art-making in afterschool and out-of-school time settings. Creative Minds is designed to create an environment that builds each child's confidence in his or her own creative abilities, and foster respect for the creative abilities of classmates. Each lesson is developed to strengthen arts-based, inquiry-based teaching skills and be easily used by educators, regardless of their previous art experience. Aims and Content: Through sharing ideas and possibilities, children come to respect the work of others, as well as that of different artists and cultures. When explaining their work and talking about observations of classmate's work, children are acquiring and using descriptive language and engaging in analytical thinking skills. School-aged children are naturally motivated and excited about learning. Creative Minds - Out of School curriculum capitalizes on their curiosity and readiness to create. Program consists of: Educator's Edition Theme-based units explore specific processes and approaches to learning offered by the visual arts. Lessons build sequentially throughout each unit to develop children's skills with a variety of expressive media. Every lesson includes suggestions for varying and extending explorations. Group Activities: Each unit culminates in a group activity that evolves naturally from the exploration. Each activity includes anexhibition of artwork that brings the group together involving parents and community in celebration. STEM Connections: Each unit poses questions to connect the art activities to learning in science, technology and engineering.