Visual & Performing Arts

Dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts have endured in all cultures throughout the ages as a universal basic language. The arts convey knowledge and meaning not learned through the study of other subjects. Study in and through the arts employs a form of thinking and a way of knowing based on human judgment, invention, and imagination. Arts education offers students the opportunity to envision, set goals, determine a method to reach a goal and try it out, identify alternatives, evaluate, revise, solve problems, imagine, work collaboratively, and apply self-discipline. As they study and create in the arts, students use the potential of the human mind to its full and unique capacity. The visual and performing arts are a vital part of a well-rounded educational program for all students.
—Visual and Performing Arts Content Standard for California Public Schools

Felta Education Foundation is committed to supporting a strong elementary arts program at West Side School that provides sequenced instruction offering unique learning experiences at each grade level.

 

Visual Art

Art experiences utilize creative problem solving by encouraging children to be original and to use their imaginations. Group projects offer students opportunities to exchange ideas and to work collaboratively. Visits to museums and galleries (or combining outdoor field trips with art projects) foster students' interest in art and help them relate art to everyday life.

An annual public exhibition of West Side students’ art projects features the development of each grade level and highlights the cooperation between West Side School and the Healdsburg community. Participation is encouraged on every level as parents, staff, teachers and students collaborate to present a collective approach to creative expression. Promotion of West Side School, Felta Education Foundation and our innovative art program are a natural outcome of this event.

Curriculum and events include:
• Artist-in-Residence Series: Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grade
• Artist-in-Residence Series: 4th, 5th, and 6th Grade
• Annual Spring Art Show
• School-wide assemblies
• Field trips to museums and exhibitions

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Music

Felta Education Foundation realizes the value of implementing a solid music program based on tiered course content. Students are exposed to music history and develop knowledge and technical skills of musical performance.

West Side students experience music by listening, speaking, chanting, singing, moving, playing, reading, writing, and arranging. Each of the elements is critical for students’ learning of music. These basic elements provide a foundation for advanced development when students interpret, compose, improvise, and evaluate music and musical patterns.

Curriculum and events include:
• Annual Winter Program for choral and band
• School-wide assemblies
• Field trips to musical performances
• Spring Music Performance

 

Theater, Drama and Dance

Felta Education Foundation is committed to programs that refine students communication skills and allow for a deeper understanding of how communication is expressed. This is provided in a drama unit in partnership with credentialed theater arts instructors. All learners have an opportunity to develop to their highest potential and gain a deeper understanding of the history and practice of theatre as an art form.

Curriculum and events include:
• Theater arts workshops
• Student productions
• School-wide assemblies
• Field trips to theatrical and dramatic productions

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Poetry

Felta Education Foundation shares the West Side School staff’s proposition that poetry belongs to us all. The objective of our poetry program is to ignite a passion for poetry in every child.

Through our Poet-In-Residence Program, students in grades 3-6 are immersed in the process of experiencing poetry. Most learn that being a creator of poetry can be a rewarding experience; playing with words and examining the power and mystery of language can be exhilarating.

The poetry program encourages students to support each other in the process of writing poetry and helps them work toward writing a piece that is published in a West Side Poetry Anthology. Students gain a sense of pride and accomplishment after writing their own poem and reading a favorite poem aloud to their peers.

The Chameleon Pick

The pick dreams of getting rich with this tool —
Shiny metal dreams of riches
Banging on the shelves in Heald’s Store
And the pick wants to break rock
And find gold. It likes to see gold.
A pick is as gray as a gray whale,
And dreams of changing colors.
— Geoffrey Safford

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