Creative Minds - Out of School is your guidebook for an afterschool art program for grades K-5 developed in 2010 by Cathy Wiseman Topal for the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership. This Educator's Edition provides training and professional development resources, plus advice from the author on "Maintaining Order in the Classroom," helpful tips for both veteran teachers and newcomers. Three thematic units explore specific processes and approaches to learning offered by the visual arts. Lessons build sequentially throughout each unit to develop children’s skills with a variety of expressive media. Every lesson includes suggestions for varying and extending explorations. Creative Minds is designed to create an environment that builds each child's confidence in his or her own creative abilities, and foster respect for the creative abilities of classmates. Each lesson is developed to strengthen arts-based, inquiry-based teaching skills and be easily used by educators, regardless of their previous art experience.