Class 5 Complements
Click one below to learn more:
Beginner UkUlele
Experienced Ukulele
Needle Felting & Wet Felting: Mythic Creatures of the Ancient World
Cooking
Painting & Drawing
Theatre & Speech
World language: Spanish & German
Circus Arts & Movement
Extra Lesson
Our Class 5 size is 14 students, allowing the teacher to get to know each student and creating a class community environment during class.
Beginner Ukulele
Playing the ukulele offers a myriad of benefits, supporting coordination, concentration, and a sense of calm through music-making. In this beginner class, students will be gently introduced to the instrument in a joyful and accessible way.
This class is designed for students who are new to the ukulele or still developing their foundational skills. Together, we will learn how to hold and tune the instrument, form basic chords, and establish a steady rhythm. We will begin with simple, essential chords such as C, F, and G, and gradually build toward additional chords like Am and Em as confidence grows.
A strong emphasis is placed on rhythm and group playing. Students will learn foundational strumming patterns and practice playing in unison, echoing patterns, and gradually taking small musical risks in a supportive environment. Our focus will always be on making music together, rather than isolated drills, so that learning feels engaging and alive.
With regular practice, students will develop the coordination and confidence needed to play full songs. This class lays the groundwork for future musical growth and prepares students to move into the Experienced Ukulele group when ready.
Experienced Ukulele
Playing the ukulele continues to offer rich benefits for cognitive development, coordination, and emotional expression. This class is designed for students who already have a solid foundation and are ready to deepen and expand their musical skills.
Students entering this group should be comfortable with the “island strum” (DDU UDU) and able to transition between at least 6–8 chords with relative ease. Placement is based on experience rather than age, and students in grades 4–9 are welcome.
In this class, we will build on existing skills by exploring a wider range of chords, including bar chords and more complex shapes, as well as playing in multiple keys. Students will work with varied rhythm patterns, strengthen their timing, and develop greater fluency in chord transitions.
The focus remains on making music together, with increasing opportunities for student leadership, musical choice, and creative expression. Students may begin to explore harmony, dynamics, and more nuanced playing, as well as the possibility of informal performance.
This class supports students in moving from foundational playing into a more confident, expressive, and independent musical relationship with the ukulele.
Needle Felting & Wet Felting: Mythic Creatures of the Ancient World
Needle felting is a gentle sculptural art, where clouds of soft wool are slowly transformed through the touch of a barbed needle into forms full of life and character. In this class, the craft becomes a doorway into the imaginative world of mythological beings from ancient stories. This theme invites students to engage deeply with their creativity, as each project becomes more than a craft, becoming a small story brought to life. The process encourages focus, patience, and a quiet sense of accomplishment, while offering a meaningful connection between artistic skill and the timeless world of myth and legend.
Painting & Drawing
In this Grade 5 & 6 Painting and Drawing class, students are invited into a living relationship with color, form, and the beauty of the natural world. Through a rhythm of alternating drawing and painting, the children experience both the flowing, expressive qualities of color and the grounding, clarifying nature of line and form.
We will work with watercolor, watercolor pencil, gouache, colored pencil, and charcoal, each medium offering its own mood and lesson. Lessons arise from the seasons, careful observation, and from the students themselves. We will learn to see more deeply - how light meets shadow, how color shifts and breathes, and how form emerges from careful attention.
These artistic efforts seek to engage the whole child - nurturing not only artistic skill, but also patience, presence, and a growing capacity for inner and outer perception. In this way, art becomes not only something we create, but something we come into relationship with.
Theatre & Speech
In our weekly drama class, students will explore the power of storytelling through drama. In class we learn how to bring characters to life through characterization, movement, and voice. Steiner-inspired speech exercises will provide a backdrop to work on speech concepts such as articulation, diction*, prosody (expressiveness of speech), and flow.
By working with familiar themes and stories inspired from their Main Lesson classes and the classics, students will learn core acting skills that will help them bring the stories and characters to life. Despite being online, ensemble-building will be a crucial component of this course. Theatre games and choral work will build our group together through laughter and imagination! No experience necessary.
LOTUS AND IVY DRAMA SCOPE AND SEQUENCE THROUGH THE GRADES
K-1 Creative Drama and Voice:
In creative drama, our students learn foundational acting skills. We focus on using our bodies expressly and representationally to act out different animals, people, and emotions that we feel. We use charming seasonal stories to act out, explore, and create different production elements to bring the story to life at home and online together such as puppets, masks, and simple scarf-based costumes and sets.
Grade 2-3 Theatre and Speech:
In Creative Storytelling and Drama, we pick up where we left off in Creative Drama, but focusing on how we use our voices and imagination to tell stories, poems, and speak with people in our everyday lives. Storytelling focal points include finding levels in our voices to show different levels of emotional states, using our imagination to turn abstract objects into other objects, and most importantly having fun!
Grade 4-5 Theatre and Speech:
Fourth and 5th Graders will continue their knowledge of theatre training by focusing on character building in this course. We will still explore the foundational acting “tool kit” of voice, body, and imagination, but we will focus more on how our bodies can reflect a character, how our voices can reflect that all on the Zoom screen! This class will work on a play to be presented at the end of the semester.
Grade 6-8 Theatre and Speech:
Improvisation, Scene Study, Physical Theatre, oh my! Our middle school Theatre and Speech class is all about using our whole-selves to create theatre magic! We will be exploring physical theatre techniques such as pantomime, improv skills through improvisation games and scene, and character work within scene study. This “all-round” class offers a great introduction to performing to students who have never taken a theatre class before and skills practice to those who are involved with local theatres or have taken a Lotus and Ivy Theatre and Speech class in the past.
Through Creative Dramatics, students will practice speech concepts such as visualization and articulation, while working with others and harnessing their imaginative skills.
Our class will meet weekly for 18 weeks (except during school-wide breaks) and will culminate with a demonstration meeting in which families and siblings are invited.
*Please note, this does not take the place of specialized Speech Pathology courses. This will aid students in these areas.
Cooking
Encouraging children to help prepare healthy meals for their families is an excellent way to teach them essential life skills. They gain a deeper understanding of the effort and time required to create tasty dishes and develop a stronger connection to the ingredients they use. This connection often makes children more open to trying foods with new flavors and textures. By expanding their palate, they can develop healthy eating habits that benefit them for life. By encouraging independence and instilling competence, children will gain the confidence to make any recipe they discover and adapt recipes to suit their tastes. The sense of accomplishment that comes from feeding loved ones can also lead to self-confidence in other areas of life.
Anticipated Recipe List:
(Recipes are subject to change according to dietary restrictions and accommodations needed within the class.)
Moroccan Couscous with roasted vegetables Morocco
Apple strudel Germany
Stuffed Grape leaves Lebanon
Design Your Own Tacos Mexico
Challah Bread Israel
Moist Healthy Chocolate Cake Ukraine
Swedish Pancakes Sweden
Pita and Hummus Egypt
Khichdi/Indian Fried Rice India
Brigadeiros/Brazilian Fudge Balls Brazil
Gyoza Dumplings Japan
Pumpkin pie North America
Quiche Lorraine France
Cranberry Hootycreeks Jar Cookies for gift-giving USA
Pasta al Limone Italy
Belokranjska Pogača/Traditional Slovenian Bread Slovenia
Hungarian Chicken Paprikash with Dumplings Hungary
Chicken Noodle Soup
Throughout the semester, the variety of recipes will reinforce technical skills, encourage innovative use of ingredients, and support interest in food culture. However, this class is about more than preparing tasty dishes.
Cooking offers hands-on experience with measuring, counting, fractions, tracking time, and temperature. For students in third grade and up, multiplication and division skills are needed to scale a recipe up or down. For students in fifth grade and up, additional math practice can come from calculating the cost of making a recipe vs. the price of a take-out version of a similar dish.
Following the step-by-step process-focused instructions of a recipe improves reading comprehension and shows that reading has practical benefits.
As foods are prepared, abstract concepts such as chemical reactions become relevant and understandable to children.
Cooking requires problem-solving and resilience to find solutions when a recipe does not come together as planned.
Many recipes we will prepare utilize basic ingredients that the student may already have in their pantry, demonstrating that home-cooked meals are manageable and can be fast and straightforward to prepare.
The kitchen is an excellent place for children to engage their senses experientially. They can knead, toss, pour, smell, chop, feel, and taste foods, all while having fun and learning without even realizing it.
Students will be encouraged to flavor dishes with herbs and spices and challenged to try their own variations, customizing recipes to suit their flavor and dietary preferences.
Cooking can teach children responsibility as they learn specific tasks to contribute to meal preparation and cleanup.
Acquiring ingredients from the grocery store, farmer’s market, or even harvesting their own herbs, fruits, and vegetables helps children understand where the ingredients that make up their favorite meals are sourced. Purchasing fresh, locally grown ingredients supports farmers in your area. For the Cooking 3/4 class: Students will be encouraged to visit a farmer’s market or pick- your-own farm to choose local seasonal ingredients.
Making a grocery list before shopping helps a child learn about planning and making informed choices about healthy foods. Choosing whole-food ingredients reduces packaging waste and instills the values of environmental consciousness.
Preparing recipes from other countries allows children to experience new flavors and textures. This exposure to diverse cuisines opens a child’s mind to different cultures, offers a geography lesson, and promotes awareness, understanding, and appreciation of culinary traditions and practices worldwide. For the Cooking 5-8 class: Each week, students will be encouraged to research two new facts about the recipe’s country of origin to share with the class.
Cooking allows children to learn more about their own heritage and family traditions through treasured recipes passed down through the generations.
Circus Arts & Movement
Classes will begin with a fun and challenging opening to get everyone up and moving. Then we will have a challenge section of class to develop balance, strength and coordination. This will be done through games and exercises. Moving into circus skills, the class will explore clowning and theatrical movement. Circus skills will include balancing, juggling, and plate spinning.
Students will learn to present their skills in Circus and theatrical styles. Social interactions will be part of the work, and focus put on students connecting and having fun. There will be a cool down and reflection to close class.
Extra Lesson
Are you noticing your child facing challenges at school but aren’t quite sure what’s causing them? Perhaps they have difficulties with focus, coordination, or completing tasks. The Extra Lesson program is designed to support children who may be experiencing developmental challenges that affect their learning, without the need for formal labels or diagnoses.
What is the Extra Lesson?
The Extra Lesson is a movement-based, developmental support program designed to help children who may be struggling with their learning. The program uses specific physical exercises, sensory integration techniques, and artistic activities to help children develop the skills they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond.
Who is This Program For?
The Extra Lesson program is for children who:
Struggle with concentration and attention in class
Have challenges with motor skills, both large and small
Experience difficulty following instructions or completing tasks
Could benefit from additional support with coordination and focus
Are Class 3 through Class 6
Not a Diagnosis, Just Support
It’s important to note that the Extra Lesson is not a diagnostic tool, nor do we label children. Instead, we focus on providing the help your child needs to succeed based on their unique strengths and challenges. Our goal is to support your child in reaching their full potential, at their own pace.
If you believe your child could benefit from additional support in their learning journey, reach out to us today for more information or to schedule an initial consultation.