Performing Arts
Through performing arts, early childhood students explore the use of their body and their voice as a means of self-expression and joy. With plenty of opportunities to create dance and make music while learning to collaborate with classmates, performance skills are developed so that students enjoy opportunities to perform for each other, for others in the school, and for parents and caregivers. While the curricula have their foundations in classical, contemporary, and tap dance styles, students have practice in, and exposure to, a variety of dance and music styles while learning that humans around the world all dance and sing.
Junior kindergarten dance and music class introduces locomotor dance movements as students learn how to move safely and skillfully in a group. Circle activities include the use of stationery movements and singing during musical and movement games, and often include the use of rhythm instruments. As the year progresses, increasing dance skills lead the students to successful and skillful improvising, while increasing vocal and rhythm skills leads to strong and satisfying unison singing.
In dance and music class, kindergarten students participate in activities designed to develop vocal, rhythmic, and movement skills while enjoying creative expression. This includes learning singing and dancing games, songs, dance steps that travel or dance steps that stay in one place, and movement patterns. Dance improvisation skills are strengthened and work with drums and rhythm instruments continues. Tap dance is introduced during the spring term, strengthening both rhythm and movement skills as the students prepare for a tap dance performance.
First grade music incorporates both Kodaly and Orff methodology. Students play music games, dances, and engage in listening to both folk and composed music from across the world as part of developing technique and performance fluency. As their skills develop, music literacy elements are introduced. Students take responsibility for leading warm up routines, singing together and alone, and playing unpitched percussion instruments.
First grade dance students learn how the dancer’s body moves through time and space. Levels, directions, and pathways within the studio are explored along with the use of both traveling dance steps and stationery movements. Students learn a set warmup of stretches and strengthening movements and create their own dance moves and dance patterns through improvisation and creative dance making activities. Classical Indian dance, square dance and contra dance, and the connection between dance and the visual arts are specific topics which are explored in depth.
Visual Arts
The early childhood visual arts program at Grace offers each student a variety of opportunities to explore, collaborate, problem solve, develop their individual voice, and build community through creative expression. Our goal is to embrace the artist in every child and to celebrate the process of creating.
Visual art in the junior kindergarten introduces students to the art studio space, art materials, and art-specific language. Routines are established to guide our young artists through projects relating to their interests and the community around them. There is an emphasis on the use of clay to create 3-dimensional objects and students begin using a variety of materials to draw, paint, and collage. All art lessons are presented with an emphasis on using imagination and inventiveness so that students learn to solve creative problems independently.
Visual art in the kindergarten reviews and builds upon skills developed during junior kindergarten. Students are introduced to new materials and techniques, as well as creating work on a larger scale. Our artists become more self-reliant in the art studio, making more independent choices about their creations, selecting their own materials and being thoughtful about the shared responsibility of keeping the art studio clean. Projects often relate to the community and larger world around them, with a continued focus on imagination and self-expression.
First grade students explore the world through a sequence of projects, integrated with their social studies, science, and dance curricula, that celebrate the artistic histories, cultural traditions, and ecological diversity of the seven continents. Students practice the basic elements and principles of visual art through a dynamic range of 2d and 3d media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and textile arts.
Physical Education
Early childhood physical education leads students through joyful, play-based activities essential to early childhood development. These experiences foster fun while building strength, agility, flexibility, coordination (both eye-hand and eye-foot), and balance.
In junior kindergarten, students are introduced to basic manipulatives and sport skills using equipment such as balls, hoops, ropes, paddles, and targets. The emphasis at this stage is on developing gross motor skills through structured games, tumbling, and free play. These experiences help students become more aware of their own personal boundaries and those of their peers, while also beginning to build essential communication and social skills. The curriculum highlights core values such as safety, empathy, fair play, cooperation, and kindness in every lesson.
Moving into kindergarten, students engage more intentionally with manipulative and sports skills, including the basic rules and strategies associated with different activities. While they continue to use similar equipment, the focus shifts toward a more structured understanding of games and physical activities. Gross motor skills continue to be developed, now with greater coordination and purpose. Students are encouraged to respect personal space and strengthen their social interactions, with consistent reinforcement of core values across lessons.
By first grade, the curriculum places a stronger emphasis on refining fundamental movements and building a solid foundation for future sports and physical education. Students participate in elementary sports and lead-up games, learning not just how to perform physical tasks but also the objectives, rules, strategies, and etiquette that support healthy participation. These experiences further reinforce personal and social boundaries and deepen communication and social skills. The values of safety, empathy, fair play, cooperation, and kindness remain central, while daily recess offers an additional opportunity for students to practice and reinforce what they learn in P.E. class.
Library
Students in the early childhood division visit the library once a week, where they learn to nurture their curiosity and develop a joy of reading in a beautiful space.
In junior kindergarten and kindergarten, children listen to one or more picture books read aloud by the librarians. Following a brief discussion of the story and its characters, children are guided in choosing a book to check out and bring back to the classroom. They may also enjoy doing a drawing activity related to the read-aloud. Over the course of the year, children will learn about the parts of a book as well as how to take care of library books. Students will gain a basic understanding of the role of author and illustrator during special units devoted to studying a particular author or illustrator.
First grade students build on the library skills they learned in previous school years by applying them to a broader range of literature. They are also allowed to take their books home with them for the first time. Read-alouds during library class include longer works of fiction with settings that relate to the classroom curriculum, as well as biographies of people who have made important contributions. In the spring, students participate in an international picture book award competition, in which they choose the best of four books after listening to and discussing them.