The Mississippi Museum of Art founded the Center for Childhood Creativity (CCC) with the support of the Ergon Foundation in 2021 to augment arts instruction offered in schools and increase exposure to the arts. As many studies have shown, a foundation of arts education in elementary school has a positive and substantial impact on students’ academic, social, and emotional outcomes. Students engaging in arts-based curriculum show an increased facility in problem-solving and decision-making, verbal skills, self-confidence, responsibility, creativity and innovation. Arts participation is shown to have an impact well past the primary years, with positive effects indicated in overall school engagement, standardized scores, and attendance of postsecondary schooling and subsequent degree attainment.
Driven by providing this critical benefit to Mississippi youth, MMA is expanding its educational offerings to ensure that more of our state’s students may engage in arts curriculum.
MMA offers a dynamic slate of free public and educational programs—such as Family Day, School Tours, the pre-K literacy program Look and Learn, and in-gallery Engagement Spaces—as well as expanded offerings developed to better serve our community and school partners, including:
The CCC strives to be responsive to community needs, and is therefore designed by families, for families. The MMA is thankful to its Family Advisory Board (FAB!)—an outgrowth of the Museum’s existing Community Advisory Committee—for their continued feedback and involvement.
For more information on the Center for Childhood Creativity’s current programming, visit our upcoming events page.
For teachers interested in partnering with the Museum to bring art to your classroom, please visit our School Tours page for more information.
The Center for Childhood Creativity relies on the support of our generous community of donors. To give in support of its important work, click here.
Interested in joining our Family Advisory Board, email Bech Evans at bevans@msmuseumart.org.
