MOCHA Artist Residency Program

Emerson Elementary School, North Oakland (2008)

This program provided 16 weekly visits from a MOCHA (Museum of Children’s Art) Teaching Artist to all grades K-5 classrooms at the school. Students explored a range of artistic techniques and styles, in lessons that were tied to school curricula and state standards for the visual arts. Lessons included recycled building communities, African American portrait quilts, Mexican clay animal pinch pits, and Japanese fish kites. The impact on students opened up new avenues for creativity and expression, engaged at-risk students, and provided teachers with innovative ways to integrate arts-based learning with core subject areas like critical thinking, vocabulary and literacy skills, and science skills.