Understanding the role and purpose of warm-up activities in art education

This case study explored the role and use of warm-up activities by three art teachers at an after-school art program. The purpose of this study was aimed to examine the purpose of art-based warm-up activities that are used for elementary age art students. Two forms of data collection were utilized. Semi-structured interviews and artifacts. The semi-structured interviews helped to gain insight on the art teacher’s use of warm-up activities in their instruction, as well as warm-up activity examples provided by the teachers served as data. By comparing key words and phrases that were repeated by all three art teachers during their interviews, themes and patterns were determined through in-vivo coding and through a word cloud generator. The process of inductive coding aided in selecting the major themes of this study. These themes: discipline, focus, and skill building, emerged as the roles and purposes of warm-up activities used at an after-school art program.