Van Wezel trainings are always FREE and include certificates for professional credit hours.
Learn how to use the arts in your classroom for more engaged learning. Each workshop ties directly to school standards. Our teachers leave the workshop feeling ready to use our prepacked strategies and inspired to teach!
Upcoming Professional Development:
Arts Integration in the Early Childhood Classroom (PreK-1)
October 21, 2026
5-8pm
Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall
Join us for a hands-on professional development designed to help educators integrate core standards and content areas through the performing arts. Led by teaching artists Karim Manning (Music/Beatbox/Hip-Hop) and Monessa Salley (Movement/Dance), this workshop will provide you with practical, hands-on tools for weaving movement, music, and storytelling into your everyday classroom instruction. These are strategies proven to boost student engagement and improve overall job satisfaction for educators.
You'll leave with take-home materials to keep these techniques going in your own classroom, a book to support continued arts-integration practice, and new strategies to strengthen your daily lessons. Come ready to move, create, and connect with fellow educators!
Register through the Sarasota County Schools PD system or below!
Move, Create, Learn! Hands-On Arts Integration for Grades 2–5
December 3, 2026
5-8pm
Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall
In this PD, teachers in grades 2–5 will explore simple, hands-on ways to use movement and drama to make learning more active, engaging, and memorable. Teachers will leave with practical activities, lesson ideas, and ready-to-use resources they can take right back to their classrooms.
ELA: Use movement and drama to identify the main idea, explore logical sequencing, and bring narrative techniques to life.
Math: Make math physical and visual through dance and movement—from adding and subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers to exploring fractions, decimals, percentages, and number lines.
Science: Move through life cycles and scientific processes, including plants, animals, and the water cycle. Explore rock formations and animal classifications through movement and creative drama.
Register through the Sarasota County Schools PD system or below!
As a Partner in Education with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, we join with the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation and the Sarasota County Schools to bring world-class master teaching artists to Sarasota for engaging and cutting-edge professional development workshops.
Learn more about the Kennedy Center Partners in Education program.