About 40 kids from Chilton County are spending the week at Clanton First United Methodist Church learning different forms of art at a Children’s Worship Arts Camp.

“The camp is designed to expose the children to different art forms,” Children’s Minister Christi Mitchell said. “We thought that it would be good to invite people from the community to come and participate. Through this camp, they are being exposed to many different art forms that they might not cover in school.”

The camp is free, and allows kids from kindergarten through sixth grade to learn things such as music theory, vocals, piano, guitar, drama, painting, puppets and dance choreography.

On Tuesday morning, Mitchell said some of the students were practicing vocals while some children learned how to identify music notes.

“The neat thing about this camp is that it allows children the opportunity to have five music lessons for free,” Mitchell said. “We really want to encourage the kids to pursue an instrument they might have always been interested in, and through the camp they can find out more about the instrument as well as how to play it.”

This is the first year CFUMC decided to host an art camp, and registration was full for the week.

“We have had a great response from the community,” Mitchell said. “Art is really important and it is important for the children to be exposed to the different kinds of art.”

Mitchell said at the end of the week, children who attended the camp would be able to play a song with various instruments.

A performance for parents is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday where the children will perform renditions of Ode to Joy with the different instruments featured in the camp.

Elizabeth Byrd taught children how to paint and Elisabeth Smith taught the children different techniques of photography.

Kids were given the opportunity to take pictures of “fast moving objects, children and pets.”

“The purpose of the camp is to encourage the kids to use the arts through worship,” Mitchell said. “By teaching them different art forms, they are able to find out more about using those art forms for the purpose of worship.”