Field Trips

Lower School students in every grade participate in educational field trips throughout the year.

World Language

• Spanish and Mandarin - Kindergarten - Fifth Grade

Physical Education

Lower School students participate in a 45-minute physical education class at least three times each week. Students in first and second grade have the opportunity to participate in swimming lessons.

Drama

Lower School students are encouraged to participate in the annual All-School Musical.

Music

The Lower School focuses on literacy, appreciation, and performance. Student literacy begins with an introduction to beat, rhythm, melody, music notation, form, harmony, movement, singing, and playing pitched and unpitched instruments.

Students learn about instruments in the orchestra and about influential composers. They are also introduced to music from diverse cultures. They attend concerts in the community which reinforce their classroom experiences.

All students are taught good vocal habits and are also taught skills of choral singing throughout Lower School. Students present a Holiday concert in December and a spring concert in April. Any child in grades three through five can participate in Footnotes, our after school children’s choir. Students may audition for a smaller group out of Footnotes called Footnotes Ensemble. These two groups participate in school concerts, present concerts in their community, and take an optional trip in the spring where they may sing in a festival or a competition.

Suzuki/Traditional violin lessons are offered to all Lower School students as an enrichment class during school hours. Lessons are taught privately and semi-privately with our violin instructor. The students have performance opportunities playing in solo and group settings for the Holiday and Spring Concerts during the school year and possibilities beyond. This is a tuition based program.

Visual Arts

Lower School art classes include a strong emphasis on individual creativity. The classes encourage each child’s creativity through work with marker, tempera paint, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, crayons, and clay. Proper use of the art tools is demonstrated with each medium and various art terms are introduced and explained. In addition, the elements of line, shape, form, texture, color, space, and value are studied. Integrated art lessons are structured with the regular classroom studies when possible. The Lower School children are also exposed to several artists and their styles. This exposure helps the children further develop their imagination and form their own unique style of creativity. Artists covered may include Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Georgia O’Keefe, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Claude Monet, to name just a few! Art classes are 45 minutes weekly.