The Mission of Music at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Day School:
To inspire students by providing an optimum environment through love, acceptance and encouragement in a safe and innovative space, in which each individual child can create, celebrate, and participate in making music and expressing worship.
The Program
Our students sing and play both pitched and un-pitched instruments while being exposed to music theory, culture and appreciation.
The music program SK relies heavily on the Kodály-Orff methods, which emphasize experience and creative expression. This teaching approach affords the ability to meet the national standards for music education in a manner keeping with our mission statement. In this program children are involved in singing, rhythmic expression, movement, playing pitched and un-pitched instruments, and improvisations.
The PK and JK music program employs a variety of musical experiences, emphasizing auditory, vocal, and kinesthetic development. The program encourages vocal and instrumental musical exploration through activities designed to develop creativity while instilling in the children a love for musical expression. The Musikgarten curriculum provides the basis for music education at this level. Musikgarten is an age-appropriate curriculum developed by early childhood music specialists. Children are exposed to a variety of musical experiences and styles through the mediums of song, rhythmic instruments, listening and movement activities. In addition, as of the 2010-11 acadmeic year, PK and JK students will have the opportunity to explore various age-appropriate iPod Touch music applications. These applications will enrich and encourage development in instrument recognition and identification, both aurally and visually, as well as in musical expression and other musical concepts.
