A typical day at Master’s

Our goal during the day with the students is to teach them to Glorify God through Excellence in the Fine Arts.  We will provide various opportunities throughout the day for them to explore how they themselves can glorify God in art, music, and drama.  They will discover how some artists used their talents in art, music, and drama to glorify Him.  In History, they will learn about the important events that happened during the time period as well as how God used various people and events to further His kingdom.

Each year the arts are taught from a specific time period.  For the 2009-2010 school year, the Medieval-Renaissance time period will be studied.  Students will attend four one hour classes: history, music, art, and drama. 

A typical day at Master’s consists of students attending 4 classes: History, Art, Music, and Drama.  The first 10-15 minutes of the day are spent on dedicating the afternoon to the Lord with a little devotional or assembly time.  The teachers and teacher aides will also take prayer requests and pray.  Announcements and expectations for the day are made at this time.  Then the students will start their class rotation and spend 1 hour in each class.

A student may enter their History class and find their teacher dressed up as Florence Nightingale (or another character) who then proceeds to explain how she was a pioneer nurse and the improvements that she contributed to hospital care.  The teacher may ask for a student volunteer who, with some minor costuming becomes one of the characters needed to further the explanation of Florence Nightingale’s life.  Hands-on projects are also used to reinforce the lesson being taught for the day.  Thus, History is brought to life as the students participate in being part of the history lesson. The teachers may also use other creative ways to convey the history lesson each week so that they will retain the information that they are learning in class.  The teacher will also take the opportunity to explain how God used these historical events and/or people to make a difference in the world.  Students will also participate in tasting food from the time period throughout the school year.  One History presentation is typically assigned to each student.  This allows the student to learn how to do research, make a presentation board or power point (for those who love to work on the computer) and be able to present their material to the rest of the class in a familiar group setting.

In Art class, the first 5-10 minutes of class are spent on learning about the different artists of the time period – something interesting about their life and how God might have used their artwork.  The rest of the class time is used to work on an in class artwork piece which the students produces with step by step instructions from the art teacher.  Each piece of artwork can take up to 4-6 weeks to finish.  For example, after studying van Gogh and his painting technique, students may paint their own Starry Night.  Each year, students are able to complete 6-8 art projects in class.  During the course of the year, we may instruct the students in drawing, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, painting, working with clay, etc.   The different mediums that are taught each year is dependent on the time period.

Snack time – During the middle of the day, we provide the students with a snack time so that they can get refueled.  No peanuts/nuts and any snacks made in a factory that produces food with nuts is allowed on campus due to severe peanut/nut allergies of some of our students.

Music Class – Different great composer’s lives and their accomplishments in music from the time period are explored in class.  As they learn about each composer’s life, they also listen to their music and how it influenced the people around them.  When appropriate the students are taught how some of these different composers used music to glorify God.  Basic music theory as well as some voice training and rhythm instrument and/or bells instruction is given in class.  We seek to teach music in a hands-on environment so that they can be excited about music.  Don’t be surprised if your child(ren) comes home expressing how the music teacher was dressed up as an opera singer and performed for them or how they were able to play certain interesting instruments that were brought in to class for them to try out.  The last 10-12 weeks of classes, the students will also prepare a musical piece to perform at our end of year performance.

Drama Class – As much as we can, we will teach the students about the theater of the time period – some historical theater facts are not appropriate for us to teach to our students.  Theater games are used in class to teach the students different theater skills such as the different parts of the stage, the basic parts of speech, voice projection, etc.  They will also work on in class dramatic presentations so that they can become comfortable performing in front of an audience.  We want the students to be comfortable performing/presenting in front of others so that if one day God provides them the opportunity to share their testimony, they will be totally at ease in doing so.  A recess time is also built in to the drama class time so that they have a time to fellowship with one another. The last 10-12 weeks of classes, the students will also prepare a dramatic skit to perform at our end of year performance.