Arts
At St. Paul’s, we believe art reinforces academic concepts for all of our students. We integrate art into daily learning to help students deepen their understanding across subjects including math, reading, history, and science.
Every academic unit contains art components, whether it be making paper mache planets during the Pre-K outer space unit, singing patriotic tunes during 1st grade's Hooray for the USA unit, to creating stop-motion animation and music videos for 8th grade’s World Culture Night. Read below for more examples of how we infuse art into the St. Paul’s student experience.
Early Childhood Arts Highlights
PreK OuterSpace
St. Paul's PreK students finish their outer space unit with a big event to showcase all the arts and crafts they make over the course of several weeks. They create constellation maps, oil pastel space quilts, paper mache planets, and space rovers made from recycled materials.
Kindergarten Weather Night
For a grand finale of their weather unit, Kindergarten hosts a big open house to show of all their crafts and new weather knowledge. They fill their classrooms with water colors of clouds, cloud models, colorful anemometers, and tornado collages. Incorporating arts and crafts is a great way to reinforce all the curriculum content!
PreK Ocean Program
Our PreK classes wrap up their unit exploring ocean life and water ecosystems with a special music program for family and friends. Not only is this adorable, it's a great opportunity for these students to get comfortable with public speaking. This was their first time delivering memorized lines in front of an audience!
Early Childhood Christmas Program
It's always a delight to see our youngest students take to the stage to perform Christmas tunes for family and friends. Not only is this festive fun, it's a great way for Early Childhood students to begin learning some public speaking skills. Plus, events like this build lots of confidence and independence!
Lower School Arts Highlights
3rd Grade Rainforest
3rd grade students work together to transform their common space into an exhibit featuring life-size replicas of rainforest creatures. They create tropical snakes, monkeys, birds, frogs, insects, spiders, and more!
5th Grade Relief Sculptures
5th grade students make highly-detailed relief sculptures using cardboard and hot glue. Their individual sculptures are based on the settings they devise from their creative writing class. It's a great way to incorporate hands-on learning into their language arts work.
4th Grade Shark Tank
For their big Shark Tank unit, 4th grade students present original product concepts, advertising artwork, and product prototypes. This collaborative project emphasizes plenty of entrepreneurial concepts, but it also taps into each student's artistry and creativity!
5th Grade Change Maker Artifacts
Students create artifacts to represent significant Change Makers who influenced history, life, and culture around the world. They use a range of materials to craft their artifacts, and they present them along with other arts projects at their big Change Maker Museum event for family and friends.
1st Grade Market Day
To wrap up their study of money and economics, 1st grade students created crafts, artwork, and services to sell on Market Day. each student brought in $3 to spend on each other's items and services. This activity not only welcomes creativity and self-expression, it teaches students how to count money and work with a budget. Students also managed to make some tidy profits!
1st Grade Halloween Program
St. Paul's 1st Grade students perform in their the annual Halloween program.
Middle School Arts Highlights
Bob Ross Painting Elective
Middle school students paint beautiful pastels on canvas during their "Painting along with Bob" elective. While listening to the soothing sound of Bob Ross, students learn about alla prima painting techniques (applying wet paint on wet paint without letting earlier layers dry).
8th Grade Pop Art
After studying Andy Warhol's Pop Art and this famous portraits, 8th grade students pick their own famous person to celebrate with paint. They enlarge their posterized image using a grid system before painting with tints and shades to create large scale artworks.
7th Grade - Haring Sculptures
7th grade artists work to create 3D representations of American artist, Keith Haring's famous Pop Art symbols. Students learn about his study of symbology and visual languages. They construct cardboard armatures and diligently paper mache before painting.
8th Grade - Buddy Sewing Project
2nd grade artists wdesigned fantastical creatures and their 8th grade buddies produced them as 3D textile creations! 8th graders had to use their engineering thinking caps to create patterns and produce felt stuffed creatures. They learn to use sewing machines and traditional needle and thread while sewing on buttons and stripes.
Middle School Music Composition
Middle School students work on creating their own original compositions using a variety of instruments and digital tools. They present their final work in a recording session which is shared with family and friends.
Music & Performance Opportunities
We integrate music and performance into themed units to help reinforce curriculum and give students many opportunities to build their confidence and public speaking skills. Plus, it's fun for family and friends to watch students shine up on the big stage several times a year! Here are some examples of performances that are built into academic calendar.
- Pre-Kindergarten - Ocean Life: To cap off their study of ocean ecosystems and sea creatures, students sing and dance to adorable water-themed songs. Plus, this is the first time students deliver memorized lines at a microphone!
- 1st Grade - Hooray for the USA: Students present biography speeches of famous Americans and perform patriotic tunes.
- 3rd-5th Grade Showcases: Students in each grade level work together to write original music pieces, memorize instrumentation, and sing songs of their choice for family and friends.
Plus, each grade level in Early Learner through 5th Grade performs a Christmas music program around the holidays!
Middle School Musical: An Annual Tradition
Every spring, students in 6th through 8th grade can audition and perform in a middle school musical. Past performances have included Grease, Aladdin, Into the Woods, Matilda, Seussical, and many, many more! Students work collaboratively with faculty to design the sets, costumes, create the choreography. The project culminates in performances for the entire student body (the younger grades love seeing their big buddies up there on the big stage), and a separate evening performance for family and friends.
STEAM Fair
St. Paul's students, parents and faculty celebrate together at our big STEAM fair with a huge student gallery featuring many of the artwork created throughout the school year. The entire lunch room is filled student-made work including sculptures, water colors, line drawings, portraits, ceramics, fabric art, and more. We love how this event celebrates all the artistic marvels students create all year long!