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Arts Program

The arts are an integral part of The Woods curriculum.

Our talented and creative arts faculty works with the students to cultivate their artistic gifts, engaging their minds, bodies, and spirits through art education that includes music, visual arts, and performing arts. Each of these classes helps instill in students a love for creative expression and a lifelong love for the arts.

Our students are encouraged to experiment, take creative risks, and use their imaginations. You can see the culmination of this work in our exhibitions and performances, including our Annual Arts Celebration, held each May, where we showcase art from students of all ages and grades.

Performing Arts

The dramatic arts are integrated into the curriculum at every level beginning at age 3. The curriculum is designed to encourage students to use their imaginations, perform with self-confidence, participate collaboratively, and enhance problem-solving skills.

In our Montessori Preschool, students retell stories, recite poetry, and role play throughout the course of their experience. These opportunities begin to develop the poise and confidence displayed in later years.

In Lower and Middle Schools, students are presented with more formal dramatic performances. Each grade level has at least one signature performance every school year. The Grades 7 and 8 spring musical performed during the Annual Arts Celebration is the culminating experience in our performing arts program. During this musical, all students in Grades 7 and 8 play a role in the production. From acting, singing, and dancing to set design, costume design, and stage management, the students do it all with a bit of supervision from the talented arts faculty.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts is a hands-on experience where students are exposed to a variety of media including drawing, printmaking, architecture, sculpting, painting, and ceramics. Students develop their skills in an environment that emphasizes creative expression and an appreciation for the contribution of others. Students are encouraged to experiment and take risks in order to develop their creativity, skills, and imaginations.

Students at all grade levels:

  • Are exposed to various styles - representational or realistic, stylized, impressionistic, and abstract.
  • Study different historical periods, including the 20th century.
  • Work with fine art and traditional crafts.
  • Develop the ability to analyze and describe works of art from various historical periods and different styles.
  • Learn to appreciate a variety of art works.

Preschool and Lower School

The Visual Arts program in Preschool and Lower School helps students gain a better understanding of themselves and those around them. The students discover how to think critically about what they see.

The projects are designed to connect the principle of Visual Arts with other subject areas and extend what they learn in the classroom. Focus is given to the basic elements and principles of art, such as line, shape, color, form, and texture.

Students explore art created by artists representing cultures and periods different from their own making them more aware of the beliefs, ideas, and feelings of people of various ethnic origins, religions, and cultures.

Middle School

In Middle School, the Visual Arts includes the study of art history, analysis, and aesthetic discussions. The program is designed to enable the learner to become visually literate and expressive at a level consistent with his/her intellectual, emotional, and physical development. In order to achieve this, students:

  • Apply writing, reading, and verbal skills,
  • Integrate learning from other subject areas,
  • Use math as a tool for understanding space, quantity, and time, 
  • Explore a discrete body of knowledge about art discipline that entails facts, skills, and concepts, and
  • Are exposed to a variety of materials, techniques and skills.

The Annual Arts Celebration is a culmination of the year's work by all students throughout the entire school. The multi-purpose room is transformed into an art gallery - showcasing hundreds of paintings, watercolors, pastels, ink drawings, prints, sculptures, weavings, and more. 

Music

The music program cultivates creativity, collaboration, and confidence in each student through hands-on, interactive classes that include singing, instrument-playing, movement, and expressive speech.

All students, Age 3 through Grade 8, attend music classes as part of their standard school curriculum.

Students explore interdisciplinary connections through repertoire that is integrated with their social studies, language arts, and religion curriculums.

Music classes are sequential, spiraling, skills-based lessons that are in-line with the National Association for Music Education’s core music standards.

Lessons lead students through the exploration of the basic elements of music including rhythm, melody, harmony, form, timbre, and expressive qualities. Students work with these building blocks in the context of the creative process: imitation, exploration, improvisation, and composition.

Emphasizing respect and cooperation, the music classroom is a safe place to take creative risks with voice, instruments, and movement.

The music program provides formative and summative experiences for the students through multiple performing opportunities throughout the year, including the Grandparents’ Day Program, the Christmas Concert, School Masses, and Middle School end-of rotation performances for Montessori and Lower School students.

Performance Opportunities

The music program offers numerous performance opportunities for students who study an instrument outside of their general music classes.

Performance opportunities include:

  • Lower School Lunchtime Concert Series
  • Mass Preludes
  • Annual Instrumental Music Showcase
  • Arts Celebration Art Gallery Music Concerts

 

Extracurricular Music Opportunities

Extracurricular choir and instrumental classes provide students with additional opportunities to develop and fine-tune skills. For Middle School students who have music classes only part of the year as part of their Arts rotations, these continuous, year-long extracurricular music classes offer continuity and contiguous musical experiences.

These experiences include: