Art is a part of life; it is everywhere, in everything humans do. It should be major focus in children's lives as well. The American philosopher, John Dewey, believed that art education should enrich every child's education and personal life. He thought that a child's energy was best spent in constructive tasks rather than in idleness; art projects were good ways for a child to play constructively. Dewey also believed that the development of memory and imagination through the completion and study of art would lead to greater skills in critical thinking and evaluation.† The belief that art education engenders greater overall skills is evident in the inclusion of the arts in most elementary school curricula. Parents and teachers may wish to know what art resources are available to them online. As such, the topic of this pathfinder is art-related web-sites that were created for children.

According to the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, art is:

[…]the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others [...] The term art can [also] refer to painting, sculpture, filmmaking, music, dance, literature…‡

This definition encompasses a huge quantity of information, and the number of online resources regarding all possible aspects of "art," would be enormous. A search for "art" on Google yields almost 5 million results. Because the topic of art is so unwieldy, I narrowed my focus: I omitted web-sites that are specifically about filmmaking, music, dance or literature. These topics do, however, sometimes appear on sites that appear in the pathfinder.

The intended audience for this pathfinder is parents and teachers who are searching for art-related resources. These searchers may have such questions as: Where can I find sources of holiday arts and crafts for children? Where can I find sites that give overviews of the visual arts? Where can I find online activities using art found in museums? Where can I find the meanings of art terms? Where can I find crafts activities for my child to complete at home? Where can my child view other children's artwork? Where can I find lesson plans for art activities?

Because this pathfinder is specifically about online sources, I conducted my search exclusively on the Internet. I began my search at Freeality Internet Search, a directory that lists online encyclopedias among its sources. From there I searched www.Britannica.com for a basic definition of art, and Encyclopedia Smithsonian. I also searched the Arts & Entertainment section of Freeality Internet Search under Museums to find sources about children's pages at museums. Next, I went to the Art and Architecture section of Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators page. Finally, I searched Google, the online search engine, using such terms as "art activities children" and "arts and crafts children."

* Robert Genn, Ed. "Resources of Art Quotations: An Ongoing Definitive Collectoin of Quotations about Art Making," 24 June 2001,
<http://www.painterskeys.com/quotations.htm> (30 September 2001).
†"Tools for Child Development through Art Education," <http://wwwed.sturt.flinders.edu.au/DLT/2000/Web/begin.htm> (12 Octoberr 2001).
‡ "Art," Britannica.com,<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=9772&tocid=0&query=art> (30 September 2001).