• Curriculum: Educating The Whole Child
• Healthy Choices
• Social and Emotional
• Learning Through Expression
• Meeting Individual Needs
• Resources To Enhance Learning
• Community Service Program
• After School Program

• Elementary School
• Middle School
• Upper School

Learning Through Expression

Mary McDowell Friends School's Enrichment Program gives students the chance to engage in activities that stimulate them socially, creatively and intellectually without the stress of having to meet specified levels of achievement. Offering students different modalities of thinking, the arts are an important complement to the academic curriculum. Not only do they strengthen students' skills for classroom learning, the arts let students explore
and expand their own skills and discover new talents. They also boost self-esteem by enabling students to achieve success in a wide variety of disciplines using different media.

Visual Arts

For students who struggle in other areas, work in visual media, including painting, drawing, collage, sculpture and ceramics can offer the experience of creating art projects with ease and, in many cases, with effortless mastery. Work in the visual arts also gives them practice in focusing, planning and carrying a project through to completion. The woodworking program, geared to middle school students, combines creativity with functionality. Projects include the construction of musical instruments, furniture, puppets and other useful objects.

Music

A year-long, weekly music class is provided for students through the upper elementary division. There are two main goals for our music students: to learn basic music skills that they will be able to use and enjoy throughout their lives and to make a connection between practice and accomplishment.

Our youngest students learn basic skills with an emphasis on singing individually and in a group. Singing continues to be part of music class as students get older. All students participate in weekly chorus rehearsals during which they work on the quality of singing, learning a safe and expressive approach, and understanding a range of musical styles.

Playing steady beats and rhythms is also central to music class at all levels. These skills support instrumental study. Elementary students enjoy learning to play the recorder, while upper elementary students participate in an introduction-to-strings program. Instrumental classes emphasize developing a respect for the individual's pace of learning and practicing performance and audience etiquette.

Theater Arts

The Theatre Arts curriculum seeks to prepare students for life in a community through informal dramatic interpretation and dance. Lower elementary and elementary division students learn concepts and skills by participating in games that develop sensory and spatial awareness, motor skills and coordination, imaginative thinking, self-esteem and a panoply of social skills. Students showcase what they have learned in three performances a year.

At the middle school level, Theatre Arts is offered as a component of the Healthy Choices curriculum. Classes include warm-up exercises, acting games and activities to build technique and performance skills. Students can also join a weekly Theatre Arts Club which takes them through the production process from concept development to performance. Students gain hands-on experience in many areas such as stagecraft, theatre terminology, improvisation and blocking.