Academics

Arts at IDS

Art

The arts cultivate imagination, encourage mental plasticity, and enrich a child’s understanding of others and themselves. Through their work in the visual and performing arts children develop the creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills they can apply across the curriculum.
 
 
 
Preschool students learn primarily through creative play and visual art is an essential component of the curriculum. Kindergarten through fifth graders develop skills in drawing, painting, and ceramics under the guidance of a visual art specialist. When possible the art curriculum is integrated with classroom themes. Upper School students tackle projects of greater complexity in the art studio, including work on the pottery wheel. The spiraling curriculum revisits and builds upon skills learned previously to ensures continuity in skill development. Student work is prominently displayed around the school buildings and trips to local museums augment the art history component of coursework.

Music

    • Violin

Music and movement are an integral part of the preschool curriculum and students also meet with a music specialist once a week. Kindergarten through second-grade students learn to match pitch and develop rhythm skills in music classes that meet twice a week. All Lower School students learn an instrument beginning with the recorder in third grade. They also participate in the Lower School Chorus and Band. Middle School students participate in Band and Chorus and have an opportunity to join music electives such as Wind Ensemble and Chamber Strings.
 
Many Middle School students also participate in the Southern Regional Music Festival.
Please Hear our Voices is dedicated to the children of Ukraine who, as of the creation of this song, are victims of the Russian/Ukrainian war. It is a song of hope for the future, for peace in our world, and it is a plea to those in power who start wars to think about the children and end the wars.  Please Hear our Voices was also composed with the intention of giving children a collective voice through song.

Theatre Arts

"The world is our stage" is more than an expression at IDS. Kindergarten through fifth-grade students performs in an age-appropriate class play each year. They act, sing,  dance, design, and build sets. The plays are performed for the entire school community. 
All Middle School Students study Theatre Arts each year. The sixth-grade students study the history of puppetry and write scripts, build puppets, and present a puppet show. The Seventh Grade students study public speaking skills and the Eighth Grade studies specific scenes through a program that integrates acting, creative writing, and text analysis. 
 
To supplement their weekly classes with direct experience, students can participate in a Middle School musical production, involving up to fifty cast and crew members. A Technical Theater club offers an opportunity for students to design and build sets and manage the sound and light for performances.

    • 2nd Grade Play

    • grade 2 play

115 Laurel Brook Road
Middlefield, CT 06455
Phone: 860-347-7235 | Fax: 860-347-8852
ids@independentdayschool.org