 ARTrageous CURRICULUM 2009-2010
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
-Pablo Picasso
The art curriculum travels an adventurous path to learning about and through art. By mixing information with imagination, the curriculum hopes to provide art experiences that help each student express their creative and unique personal ideas, develop potential solutions to a problem, be flexible in their ideas, enhance their reasoning and intuitive thinking, develop initiative and cultivate attitudes of success!
We travel this road to discovery in any given class by exploring the language of art (see bold text below). We travel lightly, leaving behind doubts, making lots of mistakes and learning to be our own boss when deciding which visual choice/direction to take!
The basic visual symbols in the language of art are known as the elements and principles. The elements of art are line, shape, color, value, texture, form and space. The principles of art (the manner in which elements are arranged in an artwork) are balance, emphasis, repetition, similarity, contrast, overlap, unity, movement, rhythm, distortion, gradation and pattern!
Using this “language” as our road map, lessons/adventures usually proceed with a motivation - a problem to be solved, a design dilemma and/or a guided exploration. This motivation includes an instructional objective to experience new materials/methods of production or a new approach to the same materials, or a new way of “looking” at the message/lesson objective (so that DeVinci cannot accuse us of “looking without seeing”)! We analyze, apply, arrange, compare, construct, contrast, relate, define, demonstrate, depict, describe, develop, discover, discuss, draw, emphasize, experiment, explain, express, identify, illustrate, interpret, judge, list, manipulate, produce, recognize, select, show, solve, use, utilize, verbalize, work and talk about the content! Woven into each lesson is a thread of art history and analysis! We include artrageous “games” in this area such as role playing art buyers and auctioneers, “What’s My Viewpoint,” “Create a Gallery,” “Will the Real ____ Please Stand up?,” etc.
For a "rough" curriculum outline for each grade level, click "read more" below.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
 Music is a gift that allows us to experience the beauty and joy present in the world around us. Music is healing, enlivening and enriching, it helps us to learn to communicate and build community. Music teaches us harmony. The music program at Cascade Canyon School is based on the philosophy that we are all musical and that every child loves to sing, dance and play.
It is the goal of the music program at Cascade Canyon School to provide a holistic approach to learning and appreciating music. Every class starts in a circle where we gather first as a community to share songs, express ourselves and dance. From there we move into a number of musical activities that may include singing songs, movement, body percussion, ensemble work, vocal jams, songwriting, notation, call and response, listening and learning about various music styles.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
 The first goal of the theater program is to help the students explore who they are and to feel comfortable sharing that with others. The second goal is to help them find their voice and communicate that with joy and confidence to the world outside of their own experience. The third goal is to understand the ‘give and take’ of creating together; learning to share the stage with grace.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Our Program 
