Why is it important to teach art in elementary school?

1.to foster an appreciation for estethics. to foster creativity and freedom of expression through a diverse range of media.
2. use your imagination

Art is the vehicle of the imagination. When you take art out of the curriculum, you leave the vivid imaginations of children starved. With the current trend in accelerating education, art becomes even more important. How can you possibly teach a child about, say, visual color range if the child has no experience in mixing colors, how they work with, and even against each other in a visual setting?
How can you teach a child to understand the meaning of something if you give them no excercise in creative thinking by exposing them to, and letting them explore, even the most basic arts?
I volunteer in my grand daughters classroom doing art projects with the kids. We have taken rice krispies bar mix and formed it into spooky shapes (a double treat because they got to eat them)…made turkeys out of sponges to decorate the table with…..done bark and stone rubbings then cut them into shapes and used the shapes to make fall pictures….made our own tenograms…..and this coming month we’ll use rock candy strings to make snowflakes, and two more things I am still thinking up!
Anything can be an opportunity to incorporate art. reading….give them colored paper and ask them to cut shapes for the characters in the story…is a mean person sharp and pointy or all soft and curvy-round?
Social Studies…pieces of cloth to create a flag, or a native costume….
the possibilities are endless………..