Art & Music
Our Atelier
The atelier, an art studio, is the heart of a Reggio-inspired school, a physical space devoted to art making and a symbol of a creative, open-minded spirit that permeates our community. We recently converted an unused classroom into a beautiful studio featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, easels, wooden tables, access to the outdoors and, most importantly, a full-time art teacher who is a partner to every classroom and every child.
We emphasize the creative process, rather than final products — astounding as these often are. It’s fascinating to watch children’s ideas evolve as they learn through discovery, repetition, teacher demonstration, and from one another. Examples of recent projects, inspired by children’s emerging interests and skill sets: fairy houses, claywork, building with found objects, outside and indoor forts, printmaking, painting with balls and tubes, kite building, box cities, big messy murals. Preschool children take field trips to the Hood Museum of Art, a short public bus ride up the road into Hanover NH, where we partner with museum educators.
“Ateliers are beauty that produce knowledge and vice-versa, the places where ‘the hundred languages’ are enacted. ”
Music at TCS
Musician-in-Residence Jes Raymond is a professional singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. “Miss Jes” visits classrooms weekly to guide children’s developing musical languages. Our music program draws from Suzuki, Kodaly and Orff methods, pedagogies where learning first happens by ear. Each session features a balance of story songs and movement play. Then Jes leans in with a specific music concept—time, pitch, intervals between notes—all while following the thread of children’s interests. She introduces children to instruments and even to the basics of sound engineering and mixing.
Jes performs for children too, accompanying herself on banjo and guitar, with the conviction that “kids deserve connection on that level, with someone who plays for them and aims to delight them as fellow human beings.” She and her partner Jakob Breitbach stage an annual series of outdoor Family Concerts for children of all ages and their friends and families. Music binds and celebrates our community!