Creative Arts Program

Though the educational program at The Watershed School places a great emphasis on the natural sciences and community, we believe that creative arts are crucial to healthy child development and a well-rounded educational program. Our classroom teachers responsible for incorporating a vibrant creative arts program into their teaching routine. The arts program at The Watershed School includes exposure to and appreciation of varied art forms, both within the local community and world-wide, while allowing guided experimentation with different materials and building skills in various media.

The creative arts program includes the following areas: visual arts, music and movement, and dramatic and literary arts. Teachers incorporate creative arts into daily classroom activities, and attempts will be made to tie art projects to school-wide and/or classroom themes. We will draw on community arts resources for project ideas, teacher guidance and mentoring, and at times direct work with students. The Watershed School will assemble a panel of interested (volunteer) community artists representing the three different creative arts areas. This panel will be asked to help generate project ideas for each grade level in the artists’ respective artistic areas, again keeping in mind the school themes of local ecology and culture. The school will generate a list of local artists with interest in helping with project implementation and teacher and curriculum guidance. Creative art activities will be developmentally appropriate, and will encourage both individual creativity and collaboration with peers.

Students and their families are actively encouraged to attend local arts events, such as concerts, museum exhibits, native arts festivals, poetry or story readings, and dramatic productions. The school will facilitate these activities by including local arts events calendars in school and classroom newsletters, obtaining student/group discounts whenever possible, and organizing field trips and visiting performances and artists.

While The Watershed School may not be able to provide individual or group music instruction (i.e. band/orchestra/chorus) due to budgetary constraints, we will assist families in coordinating private instruction and offer practice and/or lesson space in the facility outside school hours as we are able. We will also partner with other community performance groups and schools to allow students with more advanced musical and dramatic interests a venue for instruction, practice, and performance.