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Accessible Arts / VSA Kansas, Inc.
Our Mission: To unlock the arts for children with disabilities and advocate access to the arts. We are guided by four essential principles:
Every young person with a disability deserves access to a high quality, inclusive arts learning experience.
All artists in schools and art educators should be prepared to include students with disabilities in their instruction.
All children, youth, and adults with disabilities should have complete access to cultural facilities and activities.
All individuals with disabilities who aspire to careers in the arts should have the opportunity to develop appropriate skills.
Education Programs:
Arts Exploration – To express, explore, and learn. Accessible Arts will provide options at our Art Studio on the Kansas State School for the Blind and at various locations for students to explore a variety or art mediums. Options include visual arts, music, theatre, dance and creative movement. Through their explorations, they will learn more about themselves and each other and experience success in a supportive and creative environment.
Beyond the Book – A visual literacy program, with the purpose of using the art of quilting to motivate and engage struggling readers. The goal is to provide encounters with the text that allow the reader to create visual stories with symbols from the text, accurately depict their interpretation in story form, and then with fabric. The objective of Beyond the Book is to encourage reading. To help children who have difficulty with reading to experience success. To assist children in retaining the information they have read or heard from a book. Then to researching, recreating, and reinterpreting details and creating a quilt.
Music Therapy – The philosophy of the Music Therapy program at KSSB is to utilize and enhance the current knowledge base of music therapy for individuals with visual impairments in order to assist our students in living as independently as possible in the community and achieving their highest potential. This philosophical basis incorporates many theories and strategies because of the various learning styles of our students. These theoretical strategies are incorporated into the Music Therapy program, when Music Therapy is the use of music and music-related strategies to work on NON-musical goals. Music is the tool used to facilitate changes in communication, decision-making, social behaviour, motor skills, personal management, career education, community skills, recreation and leisure skills, and cognitive skills. The therapeutic focus is on what will work best; for this student, under these circumstances. A student’s response to the music is the documentation of change. Music is not just an activity.
Start with the Arts- An instructional program created by VSA for pre-school and early elementary school learners that uses the arts to assist young children, including those with disabilities, in exploring themes commonly taught in early childhood classrooms. Start with the Arts:
Builds and strengthens specific skills in literacy and the arts by developing children’s creativity
Uses arts and literary activities to engage children in expressing concepts, thoughts and feelings
Helps children to develop their understanding of their personal relationship to the world around them
Includes resources for parents to continue their children’s learning at home
Please visit our website or Contact Us for more information:
