Where every student finds their voice.

Reading and writing music

Music is taught in grades Pre-K through 5 incrementally, so concepts and skills taught one year are used and expanded in the following years. Pre-music reading skills begin in first grade, and students are expected to read simple lines of music by third and fourth grade, when they have a unit on playing the ukulele. Reading music continues, so that by fifth grade students are able to write their own music.

Singing

Songs start with familiar children's songs and games, and include folk songs from many countries, performance pieces, and songs used to teach specific reading concepts. Students sing in all classes, at first a cappella to begin developing pitch and beat awareness, then with accompaniment. Part-singing is introduced in third grade, and by fifth grade students are singing in harmony.

Cross-learning across subjects

Cross-learning is used whenever possible, relating music to history, social customs, religious practices and history, mathematics, and science, as often as the material allows. In fifth grade, students learn about the lives and times of specific composers: the influences on them, and how they have influenced society since they were alive.

From music into drama

Pre-drama learning objectives begin in kindergarten and are revisited every year after that, as students learn to be comfortable performing in front of their peers. Fifth grade students are selected to act out the Christmas program, their first introduction to a strictly theatre-oriented class.