Arts and Specialty Programs

Students learn the fundamentals (line, color, value, shape, dimension and texture) along with the idea that art is everywhere and anyone can be an artist.

They study working artists today and throughout history. They draw and paint in many mediums, sew, weave and work with recycled materials, often on collaborative projects.

Children learn to unicycle, walk on stilts, juggle, act and perform other feats that take deep concentration. Along the way they build strength, agility, dramatic presence, confidence, self-esteem and focus, which serve them well in school and in life.

Students also take part in:

• a full-scale theater production
• a Halloween performance
• CircOrchard, an all-student children’s circus tour open to the public
• community events such as the downtown Santa Cruz Holiday Parade and half-time shows at the Santa Cruz Warriors’ stadium

We suspended our music program during the pandemic and haven't yet fully rekindled it.

For now, students explore music in their core classes through singing, creative movement, and some work with recorders and drums. Specialty music teachers sometimes offer electives or after-school classes.

Kindergartners and first graders have a music class once a week, with an emphasis on the Orff Approach.

Students take part in:

• community service on campus, such as cleaning, recycling and setting up for school events
• student council
• leading the all-school morning circle
• school-wide decision making
• activities, discussions and games from our mindfulness curriculum

Sometimes a class takes on a community project, like raising money for the animal shelter, performing at a senior home or creating a cookbook.