Hummingbirds, nuthatches and bluebirds seem ready to take flight in the art studio at PS 69 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, as 4th-graders applied the finishing touches of color to their life-size, paper-mache creations.

The bright red of Jenny’s western tanager is a sharp contrast to the subdued coloring of Gordon’s wood thrush in a sculpture project that is giving shape to many of the birds the class just read about in “The Boy Who Drew Birds,” a biography of J.J. Audubon.

“Art class is not just about technique but about hooking into the context of what students are learning in social studies and literacy and science. It’s all connected for me,” said art teacher Angela Fremont, who is also the founder of Materials for the Arts, an art-supply organization for educators [see “A source for free supplies” in the sidebar].

In the following class on a day in May, 3rd-graders added farming crops to their murals of the mud huts of West Africa, their focus in social studies. Great sheets of brown paper with paintings of huts covered tables as students, working in pairs, dipped into paint pots that Fremont kept circling the room to refill in answer to calls for “More yellow! More black!”

“Keep your brushes nice and juicy,” she reminded the children. They work in pairs, she said, “to teach collaboration. The big idea in life is getting along with people, sharing, listening.”

Students then reflected on their work in journals. “The continual use of writing during the work process is directly connected to the artistic process,” Fremont explained. “It strengthens ELL students as well as developing critical thinking and the observational skills of the artists.”

One of the Department of Education’s 20 showcase schools in the 2015–16 school year, PS 69 is the only one with an arts-focused curriculum. Fremont serves as a model teacher for infusing arts into all curriculum areas for educators from other schools.

“She makes our school beautiful and is a great resource to the city, which borrows her for citywide professional development days,” said Principal Jaynemarie Capetanakis.

Salvatore Barcia, a 5th-grade teacher and a UFT delegate, said his students look forward to Fremont’s art class. “Our arts focus elevates academics and provides other ways to engage students whose noses are in books all day,” he said.

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Jonathan Fickies

Each lesson begins with the students sitting in a circle on the floor for a discussion about the work at hand and a drawing exercise. “Artists do research first,” Fremont tells the students. “They don’t just jump in.”

And each lesson ends with yoga stretching and breathing exercises to help make the transition to the next class.

There’s not a wasted moment in Fremont’s busy weekly schedule that includes teaching all of the school’s 850 students in 50-minute classes in a seven-day cycle that requires preparing lessons and materials for kindergarten through grade 5 classes in sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, collage and ceramics.

Fremont left the Florida farm she grew up on to attend New York University and to begin her career as an artist and college art teacher.

“But after I had my own children, I got so interested in small people, how they think, how they grow, that I was no longer interested in the college level,” she said. So she spent 11 years as a Studio in a School teaching artist and for the past 13 years, she has taught art at PS 69.

“Angela’s art studio has a great impact on PS 69,” said Chapter Leader Anne Caligara. “She encourages students to use their imagination and creativity to freely express themselves. And since our school has a high population of ESL students, the arts are a wonderful way for the students to communicate their ideas while having fun.”