fine arts
Our fully integrated arts program includes visual art, music, theater, improv, and more! Students are encouraged to add artistic elements to their coursework and also to explore new mediums for their creative passions during the numerous art sessions they have each week.
Making Connections
Incorporating the arts across our curriculum allows students to discover connections between subjects that may have previously gone unnoticed. They build and showcase their understanding through artistic expression and by linking art forms with other subjects, they can fulfill the evolving goals of both areas.
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Primary children paint, illustrate their stories, create books, and receive fun, age appropriate music lessons in the classroom. They play many different instruments and learn about various types of movement. Students are introduced to the Nabi Theater in Primary and they love their time spent on stage singing, dancing, and creative storytelling. The work they do at this age incorporates emotional and cultural learning, including Spanish language songs.
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Lower School students also often paint in the classroom as well as using other materials such as clay, cardboard, and found natural items to add artistic elements to their school work. Lower Schoolers attend their classes in the Fine Arts room and begin to expand their understanding of color theory, the elements of art (line, shape, form, space, value, texture, etc.), textile arts, music and instruments from other cultures as well as music theory. At this age, they begin recorder and xylophone lessons. This is also the time where students may begin to write, produce, and act in their own theatrical works as well as writing their own music, with or without lyrics.
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Upper Schoolers will deepen the knowledge they attained in Lower School while honing their skills and, most importantly, exploring their own passions in the arts. They are able to incorporate technology such as photography or videography into their work and many students learn to control the lighting and sound equipment for our shows. Theater production lab is a large part of the Upper School experience at Counterpane and all students participate in our improv classes, concerts, and/or theater performances either in front of or behind the lights.
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Middle School students participate in a program called "Collision" which is inspired by the Palefsky Collison Project at the Alliance Theater. It is an amazing two-quarter experience in which the students explore and collaborate on an exhibition piece based on the study of a single theme woven into their humanities work for true arts integration. Through exercises and discussions, they investigate this concept and find connections to their own lives. The exercises include storytelling, movement, dialogue, ensemble building, writing, and performing. The 2024 Collision theme is the “art of puppetry” with a concentration on Jim Henson and the movie, "The Dark Crystal."
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Twice a year Upper School students put on a Marketplace where they make items of their choice to sell to the other students, friends, and family. We also encourage the students to help design our flyers, t-shirts, and artwork to be used on promotional material throughout the year. Participating in this way fills them with a sense of pride and accomplishment that their creative endeavors are worthy of not only praise from a parent or teacher, but have value in the real world.
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In the Spring, Upper School puts on the amazing "Evening for the Arts" dinner theatre production. In addition to singing, dancing, dramatic scenes, and storytelling, our improvisation troupe performs. Evening for the Arts, which includes dinner, drinks, the show and a silent auction, supports Counterpane’s fine arts program and is considered by many families to be the highlight of the year.
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
Pablo Picasso
Music Philosophy
Counterpane students learn music according to the Orff Schulwerk philosophy developed by German composer Carl Orff (1895–1982) and German educator Gunild Keetman (1904-1990). It is similar to the Montessori philosophy in many ways and the following text, taken from the American Orff-Schulwerk Association website, explains the Orff approach to music education:
"Orff Schulwerk is a model for music and movement education in schools in the United States that offers a potential for active and creative music making by all children, not just the musically talented. This approach to learning builds musicianship through singing, playing instruments, speech, and movement. Active music making is the core of this philosophy, supporting both the conceptual and affective development of children. Active learners develop more thorough and better long-term understanding of the material and ideas involved. Children who regularly improvise and create their own dances and musical settings are uniquely prepared to solve problems in many other contexts.
Orff Schulwerk music and movement pedagogy contributes to development of the individual far beyond specific skills and understandings in the arts. These skills and procedures have a wider application and value in several areas:
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Intellectual: The critical-thinking and problem-solving tasks involved in Orff Schulwerk call upon both linear and intuitive intellectual capacities. The carrying out of creative ideas calls upon organizational abilities as well as artistic knowledge and skill.
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Social: Orff Schulwerk is a group model, requiring the cooperative interaction of everyone involved, including the instructor. It is important that artistic development occurs within a satisfying and supportive human environment. Tolerance, helpfulness, patience, and other cooperative attitudes must be cultivated consciously. The ensemble setting requires sensitivity to the total group and awareness of the role of each individual within it. Problem solving, improvisation, and the group composing process provide opportunities for developing leadership.
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Emotional: The artistic media involved—music and movement—provide the individual with avenues for non-verbal expression of emotions. The exploratory and improvisatory activities can provide a focus for emotions, a means for release of tension and frustration, and a vehicle for the enhancement of self-esteem.
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Aesthetic: As knowledge of and skills in music and movement grow, students will have opportunities to develop standards of what is considered “good” within the styles being explored."
As with all things in Montessori, we believe that children learn best by doing!