Lucy School

At Lucy School, the arts are integrated as a lively and dynamic learning medium for young children that accommodates the curriculum while nurturing the need for play and active learning. Learning Projects (child initiated and/or selected by the teaching team) are introduced through related literature and an introductory drama activity:

Drama brings literature to life, creates a living through learning experience, and enriches dramatic play. Music, Movement and Dance enhance the learning experience and facilitate multi-sensory learning. Visual Arts based on the Reggio Emilia model, hones observation skills and fosters creative self-expression. Free Play is interspersed throughout the day. Play environments are changed to reflect current projects. Exploration of Nature enhances our learning and integrates related literature.

Lucy Schools Preschool Curriculum celebrates individual differences, nurturing all of the intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, inter- and intra-personal, and nature-based. Multisensory experiences are integrated into the arts activities, accommodating childrens different learning styles. New words, concepts, and stories are sung, danced, painted, rhymed, and even tasted. Sign Language is integrated into music, drama, movement and language arts, to reinforce concepts and engage children in decoding and encoding symbols essential pre-literacy work.

The arts program is designed to provide the power, challenges, stimulation, and creative problem solving inherent in the creative process. Art activities, planned and spontaneous, serve as a foundation for learning. Frequently the children are motivated by the art experience and continue exploration on their own during dramatic play; large and small block play, and outdoor play, where nature inspires curiosity and aesthetic awareness. Children are encouraged to examine their ideas using a variety of media. Their image in a mirror, for example, might be transferred to paint, clay, wire sculpture, and found objects.

In addition to the intrinsic value of the arts, at the Lucy School, drama, creative movement, dance, music, puppetry and visual arts are used to support learning across the curriculum. The arts have the capacity not only to deepen childrens understanding of content, but also to discover and define their own relationship to it.

Language Arts. Language Arts is at the core of most early childhood curricula and has the most obvious connection to the arts. Indeed, drama and language arts are comprised of the same skills: speaking, listening, and dialogue. Playing a variety of roles provides children the opportunity to experiment with various levels and uses of language. All of the arts have the capacity to stir a childs curiosity, provoke questions and idea sharing, and encourage problem solving. Interest in reading and writing are a natural outcome.

Social Studies and Critical Thinking. Young children discover their place in the world through the people around them at home, in the classroom and the community. In our preschool/pre-k curriculum, social studies is informal, covering basic elements of self and social awareness, peaceful living, and the environment. Children are introduced to the needs of people and other living things, and encouraged to contemplate the effect of their behavior on other people and on the environment. The arts go beyond merely increasing a childs knowledge of community. Children are encouraged to recognize their feelings, to express what they feel and to understand what it means. Developing emotional intelligence is an ongoing focus of our program.

Science:With our nature-based science curriculum, young children use all of their senses to gather information about the world around them. At Lucy School children are outdoors daily playing amidst the trees and hills, planting and nurturing gardens, exploring the waterfall and pond, measuring plant growth, studying shadows, and looking for signs of wildlife. They are encouraged to become aware of the delicate balance of nature.
Math and Logical Thinking. Many Lucy School arts activities integrate the use of math. Basic skills such as counting and how numbers relate to childrens lives is the focus. How many colors have you used in your painting? Lets measure how long our shadows are this afternoon and compare those to our morning shadows. There is also pre-math thinking practice through a varied use of size and space within a given arts activity. For instance, mapmaking, related to a drama journey or creating the setting in art class, requires children not only make a representation but also down scale the space theyve just used.