The Arts

Music

Feynman School is proud to partner with the Levine School of Music to bring our students a top-notch musical education throughout their elementary years. Our elementary students participate in Levine’s Building Musical Bridges program in which they develop and perform in multiple disciplines including singing, playing Orff instruments, basic percussion, and movement/dance. The program also focuses on student composition and performance.

Building Musical Bridges activities and benefits include:

• Creation of musical forms through movement activities and playing Orff instruments.
• Reading and writing musical notation, including melodic and rhythmic concepts in treble and bass clefs.
• Increased awareness of ensemble.
• Development of rhythmic accuracy.
• Strengthened pitch matching and independent singing abilities.
• Expression of musical ideas.
• Improvisation within the pentatonic and diatonic scales.
• Demonstration of musical creativity through composition.
• Developed an understanding of major and minor tonalities.

Visual Arts

At Feynman School the Fine Arts is taught to all ages from preschool through middle school. Students learn about and develop many skills including creative expression, diligence, patience, appreciation for diversity, positive growth mindset, creative problem-solving skills, decision-making skills, and social-emotional well being.   

Within our Elementary program students explore the Fine Arts with great experimentation of the Principles of Art & Design. Students are introduced to an array of mediums, styles, artists, and concepts. All units are designed to captivate learners with complexity and connect to their understanding of the world around them through the Fine Arts. Students investigate taking creative risks as they develop their own artistic style. Students’ compositions express their individual ideas and show visually strong artistic statements for each individual child’s abilities. Students are encouraged to participate in group critiques where each individual artist has the opportunity to express their creative ideas, artistic process, challenges, decisions, and reflection of their artistic statements.  

Fine Arts is a very powerful subject for students to help them better understand themselves, their emotions, positive expression, and the challenging world around them. Art gives a voice to all students so they may express their individuality in a healthy way. Here at Feynman School, we foster creativity, exploration, experimentation, and individuality to help develop the whole child for a successful future. 

Principles Of Art & Design:

Composition – Value – Balance

Line – Contrast – Unity

Form – Rhythm – Variety

Shape – Movement – Pattern

Space – Emphasis – Harmony

Color – Proportion

Drama

Feynman School’s Drama program is provided by the renowned Imagination Stage. In these classes, a professional theatre artist works to engage students in theatre arts, while simultaneously enhancing children’s critical and creative thinking, communication, and collaboration skills. Through the use of music, movement, and dramatic play, these classes ignite children’s imagination while flexing his or her problem-solving, language, and physical skills. Students use storytelling, books, and songs as springboards to exploring characters through structured, creative, and fun activities culminating in short scenes or skits created by the students.

As Feynman’s Kindergarten to Grade 2 students grow from dramatic play, our teaching artist begins to incorporate more advanced, specialized training into their classes. Drama, music, and movement are explored to promote confidence, self-esteem, and creative expression while working on skills such as active listening and sharing. Our teaching artist uses theme-based units, storytelling, books, and songs as a means to explore characters through structured, creative, and fun activities.

Feynman’s 3rd-5th graders begin to make the full transition from Creative Drama to Acting Technique: the actor’s process of creating three-dimensional characters and truthful actions for the stage. Classes utilize theatre games, improvisation activities, and scene work to develop characterization and script analysis. Students end the year with a play writing unit, where students devise and perform their own work for their families and peers.