Baby Artsplay Program History

Previously offered to parents and their children at select locations around the Washington, DC metropolitan area, Baby Artsplay classes were offered for the first time at the Center for Education at Wolf Trap in fall 2003. Baby Artsplay classes involve parents/caregivers and their children in weekly integrated music, drama, and movement classes focusing on increasing sensory awareness, spatial relations, gross motor development, and language skills.

A unique aspect of Baby Artsplay is that it uses the child's parent or principal caregiver as the primary teacher. Parents or caregivers attend all classes with the children, participate in all activities, and are provided with the tools to reinforce the activities at home. Parent and child experience music, drama, and dance through developmentally appropriate activities incorporating creative movement, singing, music-making with simple rhythm instruments, and storytelling. Through Baby Artsplay, parents learn how to facilitate developmentally appropriate arts experiences for and with their children in a child-friendly learning environment.

Baby Artsplay is now available in the form of seven-week residencies to early childhood educators in childcare and education centers serving infants and toddlers in the DC/MD/VA metropolitan area. The Wolf Trap Institute also offers Artsplay Music for Infants and Toddlers as a workshop for early childhood educators and providers. This workshop demonstrates techniques and activities for introducing music skills that foster self-expression and creativity for children 6 months to 3 years old.

The Wolf Trap Institute continues its community outreach and national expansion of Wolf Trap Education programs by providing Baby Artsplay classes for parents and caregivers and their infants and toddlers at an alternative high school teen mother program and in family support centers in Northern Virginia and Prince Georges County, Maryland.