Projects/Goals
Week of the Young Child Children’s Art Show 2010
Smart Start-Centre County was pleased to host another beautiful Children’s Art Show at the State College Municipal Building in celebration of the Week of the Young Child.
The Week of the Young Child is an annual celebration created by the National Association for the Education of Young Children in 1971. The purpose is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs.
This year’s display featured artwork created by hundreds of children from nine local children’s programs. Children’s and teachers’ creativity was apparent from the wide diversity of artistic media in the Show, including woodworking, clay modeling, watercolor painting, collage, paper creations, and much more. The artwork was on public display for the month of April, and several visitors left messages in our guest book.
Many years ago, the Art Show began when leaders of the Centre County Association for the Education of Young Children (CCAEYC) took children’s artwork to different businesses for display during the Week of the Young Child. CCAEYC did not last, but the Art Show did. About 8 years ago, Gail Guss requested and received permission for the Art Show to be held at the State College Municipal Building. Each year, more children's programs have participated by submitting artwork. Staff from Penn State’s Bennett Family Center and Child Development Laboratory have been instrumental in collecting and displaying the artwork each year. This year, for the first time, we created a slideshow of all the artwork on display. The slideshow is available on our website and was distributed to the volunteers, the participating children’s programs, and our two State legislators.
