The Arts
Music
Our music program is provided through Levine Music. Levine Music, the DC region’s preeminent center for music education, is a welcoming community where children find lifelong inspiration and joy through learning, performing, listening to, and participating with others in music.
Levine’s core values, excellence, and opportunity infuse everything they do. Their distinguished faculty offers a broad and well-rounded curriculum that provides a strong musical foundation for students of different ages, abilities, and interests. (https://www.levinemusic.org/about/mission-and-history)
Middle School students engage in instrumental music, beginning with a sampler of various woodwind and brass instruments. From there, each student selects an instrument of their choice, and more formal instruction is provided. Students are afforded the opportunity to perform in two yearly concerts.
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.
Once students are in middle school, they continue refining their creative drama and acting techniques in preparation for putting on a full-fledged musical production. Students are given the choice to take on the role of actor, dramaturge, or set creator. Classes utilize theater games, improvisation activities, and scene work to develop characterization and script analysis.
Fine 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.
Middle School 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.
Our Middle School program allows for more artistic freedom for students to develop their individual style and skills within mediums of interest. Middle School students as well have an independent study challenge at the end of the school year where they may choose an artist of their liking to inspire a reflective artistic piece based on their chosen artist style and give a presentation about their artist to their peers.
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