SPRING EXHIBITIONS 2018
GR A DE L E VE L E X HIBIT IO NS Spring is a season for new growth and that is exactly what is on display at Presbyterian School grade level exhibitions. Neural pathways are being strengthened and newly created through a child’s active participation in the arts. The positive benefits of cognitive development is especially enhanced with the integration of arts into the core curriculum. Arts integration is the hallmark of our Spring exhibitions, from Beta to eighth grade. Through improvisation in Beta to
a public reading of original work in sixth grade, students are allowing themselves to be seen and heard in the spotlight. In each grade, research and inquiry lead to experiential learning and thoughtful rehearsal produces a polished performance. While no two exhibitions are the same, all require our students to share their learning using multiple modalities. Every year of discovery during the Spring exhibitions helps each child chip away at the masterpiece that they are becoming.
Beta Lights, Camera, Action!
Pre-K Airlines Parade
May 11 • 8:15 - 8:45 a.m. • North Playground
May 23 • 2:00 p.m. • School Hallways
The Beta Celebration of Children’s Literature and Storytelling will showcase some of the favorite stories from the school year. Beta students act out adult-authored stories in addition to dictating and dramatizing their own. Students' stories highlight things that are on their minds, things they enjoy, things that worry or frighten them, as well as things that delight them. Please join us as the Betas take to the stage, our outdoor playground stage. It will be a wonderful way to start your Friday morning!
Pre-K Airlines takes in all the sights, smells, and wonders of different cultures around the world. Starting in Houston with a quick layover in New York City, students visit Australia, France, and Ancient Egypt, where they build pyramids and learn the process of mummification. Italy, India, and Greece are the last three stops on their world journey. The year-long curriculum ends with a “Passport Parade” where students dress as someone from their favorite country. Expect to see Degas ballerinas, King Tut, and Zeus. Let your learning and creativity take flight with us!
Kindergarten Circus May 18 • 1:00 p.m. • Grand Hall Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages . . . welcome to the Kindergarten Circus! This main event includes (daredevil) performers, risky animal acts, live entertainment, laughter, and suspense. Each student performs an act in the circus. Prior to the circus, students draw from digital and print sources to research and gather historical facts on their act from past circus performances. Come one, come all to the Main Event.
1st Grade Dinosaur Museum February 7-8 • All Day • Palm Court First grade is going back in time for a month-long study of dinosaurs, paleontology, and prehistory. Each student chooses a dinosaur to research, makes use of iPads and “Dino” apps, and learns how to differentiate between fact and fiction as they discover more about their chosen dinosaur. The study culminates in individual creations of a “dino-rama” to be put on exhibit. Students also write an informative speech that is recorded to accompany their dino-rama. Each dino-rama will feature a dinosaur in its natural habitat. Be sure to check out the Dinosaur Museum - you’ll have a roaring good time!
2nd Grade Back Forty Museum April 20 • 10:00 a.m. - 2:15 p.m. • LC181 Mosey on down to the Back Forty Museum where second grade students present their knowledge of the ways natural resources are harvested, stored, processed, packaged, sold, and consumed. Students are learning about the local and global communities in which they live and their roles as citizens in those communities. By studying the process of how food goes from farm to table, students learn about managing natural resources and how individuals and businesses contribute to a community. Y’all come visit soon, ya hear?
3rd Grade Wax Museum March 8 -9 • 12:15 p.m. • Fellowship Hall Third grade students work to expand their knowledge of famous historical events and figures. Students choose a person from history to research and bring to life in the Wax Museum. Whether it’s a famous athlete, civil rights activist, author, explorer, or chef, students work hard to personify these individuals in appearance, speech, and form. Stop by the Wax Museum to meet our famous characters and learn about their lives and accomplishments. This is one great moment you can’t miss!
4th grade Te x a s M u s e u m May 7-11 • All Day • Palm Court Fourth grade students focus on a year-long study of Texas history, beginning their studies in the Paleoamerican time period and continuing to current day events in their home state. Students pick individual research topics about a person, place, or event that helped shape Texas. They learn the steps of researching, taking notes, outlining, and writing a research paper. Students also create an accompanying visual representation of their choice. Drawing upon the experience of museum experts, including faculty and staff from the Glassell School and Museum of Fine Arts, students learn how to put together and install their own museum to showcase their visual projects. From determining the layout and design of their museum to serving as docents, 4th grade students create a true Texan experience through and through! A special Texas program for parents will highlight the industry of the fourth grade on May 11 at 10:15 a.m. in Fellowship Hall.
5th Grade O l d W e s t To w n : A n I m m e r s i v e Theater Experience May 10 • 1:45 p.m. • Oakdale Grass Field According to former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, our nation's future was dependent upon westward expansion. This interdisciplinary project will be an immersive theatrical experience of life in a typical town during the United States westward expansion. Students will consider the positive and negative repercussions and portray multiple perspectives of pioneer life with their research touching on all subject areas in fifth grade.
6th Grade Reader’s Theater May 7 • LC181 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. (last name A-L) 10:10 - 11:40 a.m. (last name M-Z) Sixth grade students’ examinations of identity formation, the craft of writing, and thematic purpose converge in a creative fiction piece that engages both imagination and technique. The Reader’s Theater celebrates each student’s growth as a confident writer as they share meaningful pieces of writing demonstrating mastery of the elements of the story, adeptness with literary devices, and reflection upon the school’s core values.
7th Grade Fine Arts Exhibition May 15 • 10 a.m. • Fellowship Hall Seventh grade is the first year students experience fine art electives. The offerings are varied and open up new artistic avenues to explore. Students learn if they enjoy 3-D art more than drawing, playing guitar more than singing, as they explore where to invest their artistic energy in middle school. At the Fine Arts Exhibition, students will display this array of arts offerings to their families and give the sixth grade a view of what is to come. Students will present their experiences of these electives through spoken presentations on what they learned, performance demonstrations, and their products on display.
8th Grade RIDEE Project May 14 • All Day • Fellowship Hall RIDEE (Research, Ideate, Develop, Evaluate and Empower), asks students to choose a topic they are passionate about, create a deliverable that investigates, expands or improves upon that topic and present, and defend it to the community. The purpose of the project is to give students choice and ownership over their learning while stretching them, too. Topics were presented to a “shark tank” panel to convince at least one shark (faculty sponsor) to “invest” in their idea. The resulting projects are wildly diverse, including TED talks, fashion shows, storefronts, and more. All students participate in a final evaluation through a defense to the Headmaster.
E NCOR E PR O D UCT IO NS In addition to the grade level exhibitions, the Spring holds beauty in store with divisionwide encore productions. The School will ring with “the sound of music,” and be enlivened by vibrant student art on exhibit. Across disciplines, classes examine the arts as a universal language across time and cultures. Sacred songs are integral during worship in chapel. Art pours out of the lower school art room and covers the hallways. Eighth graders unite in the culminating class project:
a musical production. One’s identity is forged through formative experiences; performing and visual arts teach us about ourselves singularly and with others. Opportunities for both self-expression and creating “ensemble” abound from Beta through eighth grade. There are many ways in which our students can climb, search and follow their path, in the words of the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, “til you find your dream.”
MS Pop Concert: Songs Through The Decades
MS Art Exhibit: Encounters With Color
February 14 • Grand Hall 1:30 p.m. • Lower School 2:30 p.m. • Middle School & Families
March 1 - April 13 • All Day • Glassell Junior School of Art (5101 Montrose Blvd.)
The Pop music of each decade is “the rage” of that particular era. This concert will show us how what is popular can shift dramatically in the span of ten years. With wartime favorites of the 40’s to more modern expressions of our pop culture, middle school students will sing their grandparents’, their parents’, and their teachers' favorites of the last 75 years of song.
Visit MFAH’s Glassell Junior School of Art awash with color at this year’s middle school art exhibition Encounters With Color. Observe contrasts, shape and line in cut paper, view the animal’s perspective of color in acrylic paintings and behold nature’s complexion in all its glory in landscapes. The exhibit includes all art students in fifth and sixth grades and works from 7th grade Old School Drawing, Expressive Sculpture, and Mixed Media classes in addition to 8th grade Color Theory in Mixed Media, Drawing: Human Figure, and 3-D Personal Narrative classes.
Grandparents & Special Friends Day April 13 9:00 a.m. • Early Childhood • Fellowship Hall 10:30 a.m. • Lower School • Grand Hall Grandparents and special friends of Early Childhood and Lower School students are invited on campus for a day to “Paws for Reading.” Early Childhood students will Bring a Book to Life in a short music program, and Lower School students will share recitations in a Poetry Program. The Poetry Program follows the natural progression of a student’s knowledge of poetry from nursery rhymes and nonsense poems to the works of our most beloved classical poets.
The Sound of Music May 3 • 1:30 p.m. & 7:00 p.m. • Grand Hall May 4 • 7:00 p.m. • Grand Hall The Class of 2018 presents a jewel of American Musical Theater, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. The musical is based on the true story of the von Trapp family who fled Nazi rule in their Austrian homeland in 1938. Maria takes a job as governess to seven children while she is deciding whether to become a nun. The children fall in love with her and she with them, and eventually with their widowed father, Captain Georg von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but refuses to comply with the Nazis. He and Maria, aided by their friend Max Detweiler, decide on a risky plan to flee Austria with the children.
Spring Choir Concert April 24 • 6:00 p.m. • Sanctuary The Spring Choir Concert allows Presbyterian School the chance to celebrate the work and musicianship of its Lower School Choir and 5th & 6th on Main Choir. Students are working on repertoire spanning many centuries and several genres, including the music of the 15th century, Russian and French Canadian folk music, African American Spiritual, and Contemporary Art Song.
Lower School Co-Curricular Art Exhibits The Lower School Art room is an industrious place. The focus in the art room this year is collaborative learning with projects within grade levels and across divisions. Students are learning that their individual work matters, but combined with others, it is enhanced. Ms. Chaltain’s Spring art exhibits are in support of other events on campus.
Art Through the Decades February 14 - 16 • Palm Court First, second and third grades will produce “Art Through The Decades” in support of the MS Pop Concert “Songs Through The Decades."
Great Moments in History...in Art March 8 - 9 • Fellowship Hall Third grade will create, in addition to the portraits of their historical figure, artwork that reflects events in history.
Scenes from the Circus May 18 • Grand Hall Fourth grade students will produce artwork in support of their Kindergarten buddies’ Circus exhibit called “Scenes From The Circus.”
CO M M U N I T Y PARTNE RS Presbyterian School’s mission of Family, School and Church united in the education and support of each Child is rooted in the premise of partnerships. Outside of the classroom, students and faculty have direct contact with the best that Houston has to offer in the arts. Students walk outside our doors and into nineteen different museums without ever boarding a bus. This proximity means that even our three year old Betas walk into the
hallowed halls of the Museum of Fine Arts to read a story in front of a masterpiece. The School forms part of an archipelago of the arts and academia in the heart of Houston’s vibrant Museum District. We are fortunate to partner with over 40 institutions to offer enriched experiences and an unparalleled independent school education to each student.
Contemporary Arts Museum Harris County Courthouse Hermann Park Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Houston Boy Choir Houston Center for Contemporary Craft Houston Center for Photography Houston City Hall Houston Grand Opera Houston Symphony Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts Lawndale Art Center MacGregor Elementary
Main Street Theater Musiqa NRG Center & Stadium Rice University The Alley Theatre The Asia Society The Children’s Museum The Emergency Aid Coalition The Glassell Junior School of Art The Health Museum The Holocaust Museum The Houston Aquarium The Houston Museum of Natural Science The Houston Zoo The Jung Center The Medical Center
The Menil Collection The Methodist Hospital The Miller Outdoor Theatre The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Nehemiah Center The Treble Choir of Houston University of St. Thomas Wortham Theater Center Writers in the Schools
Presbyterian School ● 5 3 0 0 M a i n S t r e e t ● H o u s t o n , Te x a s 7 7 0 0 4 www.pshouston.org ● Confidence in every Child