Play with a Purpose | Kingsley House

Walking through the halls of Kingsley House Head Start center, songs and giggles bubble from happy students. Drums and chimes ring out to call students back to their classrooms from playground time. “Play” continues during class but, with the help of a Louisiana Wolf Trap teaching artist, it is arts-integrated play with a purpose. 

With each passing year, arts integration is becoming increasingly recognized as an effective and joyful pedagogical practice, particularly for very young learners. National-level research conducted by leader in the field Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts indicates that pre-school students are better prepared to enter Kindergarten if their early instruction includes lessons taught through the performing arts. This strategy supports cognitive development, social/emotional growth, health and wellness, and pathways for different types of learners to succeed. Seventeen Wolf Trap affiliates operate nationwide including Young Audiences of Louisiana, a New Orleans-based arts in education nonprofit that is working in neighborhoods across the city to teach educators, students, and parents that arts integration = learning + fun!

Now completing the fourth year of their Louisiana Wolf Trap initiative at Kingsley House and Educare generously funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Young Audiences is witnessing the same exciting academic and social/emotional gains locally that are evidenced in national studies. The program, which provides teachers with arts integration professional development both through workshops and co-taught residencies with artists, is not only improving Kindergarten readiness for Early Head Start and Head Start students, it is also reinvigorating teacher practice in the classroom. Center directors report the classroom joy is infectious, bringing excitement to center hallways, playgrounds, and staff breakrooms – changes that remain long after the close of the artist residencies! As Louisiana Wolf Trap teaching artist Andrea Peoples reports, “Ms. Lewis has grown so much in her use of the arts in her Head Start classroom, and has raved about how Wolf Trap techniques help her teach and keep order in a fun way for the children. My residency has ended but she still texts me for tips!”