Arts Education

The Arts at Friends School

FSM believes in the importance of all of the arts, both across the curriculum and as discreet disciplines. Currently, students have art and music with a specialist one to two days a week.  Students study  drama with their classroom or core teachers.   For example, 3rd-4th grade classrooms join together for a two week drama unit during which they write, produce and perform an original play. 

We continually explore creative ways to make the arts vibrant and meaningful to students, and to expose them to as wide a range of arts experiences as possible within a school of our size.  At each grade level, the arts (visual arts, drama, movement, music, poetry and literature) are used as ways of learning as well as ways of expressing what has been learned. Children perform plays, sing, write poetry, create collages, design models, paint, sew, sculpt with clay and draw as part of their inquiry process and in response to themes they are studying in the classroom.

Special projects and visiting artists provide additional enrichment experiences to the children. Recent artists-in-residences have offered children the chance to learn song-writing, drumming, and mural painting from working artists. Often arts residences have a multi-cultural focus.

Performance opportunities happen throughout the year, ranging from the school choir singing in the May Day Parade, to informal plays performed for parents or classmates. Many students also choose to participate in our after school music program or drama clubs and FSM's summer programs.

Read our many blog posts about arts education at Friends School of Minnesota.