The visual and performing arts play a special part in the curriculum and the culture of Bay Farm Montessori Academy. Full-time specialists work with the classroom teachers to ensure that art, music, drama and dance are integrated throughout the curriculum. They introduce the skills inherent in each of the arts to students who then have the opportunity to use them in their own work, for their own pleasure, and in collaborative programs and projects.
Throughout the year, the campus buzzes with excitement about a wide variety of plays, music and dance performances and exhibits of student art. Toddlers and Children's House students watch in awe of their older schoolmates. One class is audience to the performance of another. Older students smile in appreciation at the work of the younger, recalling their own early efforts with pleasure and finding satisfaction at how far they have come in their own ability to be comfortable on stage. Parents attend plays and musicals with the appreciation of a Broadway audience. Everyone loves the way student art lights up hallways and offices. The community loves the arts and shows its appreciation for the work of our students and faculty with tremendous gusto.
Benefits of the Bay Farm arts-integrated curriculum:
- Academic learning is reinforced when students can demonstrate what they have learned through play-writing and performing, through musical composition and performance, and through two- and three-dimensional art.
- Self-confidence, poise and ability to share the most personal of work are increased in this trusting environment.
- Skills in the various arts enhance physical development.
- Having a wide range of means of communication gives students a variety of alternatives for demonstrating understanding and expressing feelings, ideas and knowledge.
Bay Farm provides instruction and support for students in the following arts:
- Visual Art
- Music
- Drama
- Dance
VISUAL ARTS
Students are introduced to a wide variety of two- and three-dimensional techniques which they use to create work in a number of styles.
- Pencil
- Crayon
- Cray Pas
- Paints--watercolor, tempera, acrylic
- Clay
- Wood
- Cardboard
Even as they look at the art of other cultures, they use different mediums to create unique works of their own. They learn about many different styles and periods in the history of art--realism, cubism, pointillism, etc., and may learn to recognize the work of certain artists.
Visiting artists augment the art curriculum and may provide extended units in their specialty, e.g., pottery (hand building and using the wheel). Field trips to museums and galleries give students the opportunity to view the art of others in context, often associated with units being covered in other subject areas in their Montessori classrooms.
Students who become familiar and comfortable with working with many materials, and with looking seriously at art, have certain advantages:
- Increased eye-hand coordination
- More refined visual memory
- A means of enjoying the creativity of others as well as their own
- An understanding of the life of other cultures, and of our own, as seen through art.
Click here to see photos of students in our Arts program!
