Class Summaries

During this class student artists worked on several projects (listed below) and learned a lot along the way. They learned about artists, their individual styles and techniques and incorporated these into their very own works of art.

Hunt Slonum Year of the Rabbit Project: Hunt is a nationally recognized American Artist known for his “Bunnies”. Students talked about the Chinese Year of the Rabbit and created a repeating bunny painting white and black oil pastel and watercolors.

Laura Owens: Laura had a show at the DMA with her very large paintings with line art of her muse, cats. Using sharpie and soft pastels students created their own muses with a simplified palette like Laura.

Snowflakes: After the frigid ice storm students created their own snowflakes with bleeding tissue paper. They also learned how to cut out snowflakes and used matte medium to adhere flakes onto their background.

Party Monsters: This was a color theory lesson with primary, secondary, complementary, and analogous colors. These students created the coolest Party Monsters and then followed instructions on color blocking while learning about colors. Everyone loved these results!

Juan Gris Cubist Guitars: Students learned about Spanish artist, Juan Gris, and his cubism art. They worked on the instructor’s mother’s sheet music from the 1950s featuring Spanish composers. Using oil and chalk pastels the students learned how to work in the Cubist style. The results were stunning.

During this class student artists worked on several projects (listed below) and learned a lot along the way. They learned about artists, their individual styles and techniques and incorporated these into their very own works of art.

Hunt Slonum Year of the Rabbit Project: Hunt is a nationally recognized American Artist known for his “Bunnies”. Students talked about the Chinese Year of the Rabbit and created a repeating bunny painting white and black oil pastel and watercolors.

Laura Owens: Laura had a show at the DMA with her very large paintings with line art of her muse, cats. Using sharpie and soft pastels students created their own muses with a simplified palette like Laura.

Snowflakes: After the frigid ice storm students created their own snowflakes with bleeding tissue paper. They also learned how to cut out snowflakes and used matte medium to adhere flakes onto their background.

Party Monsters: This was a color theory lesson with primary, secondary, complementary, and analogous colors. These students created the coolest Party Monsters and then followed instructions on color blocking while learning about colors. Everyone loved these results!

Juan Gris Cubist Guitars: Students learned about Spanish artist, Juan Gris, and his cubism art. They worked on the instructor’s mother’s sheet music from the 1950s featuring Spanish composers. Using oil and chalk pastels the students learned how to work in the Cubist style. The results were stunning.

During this class student artists worked on several projects (listed below) and learned a lot along the way. They learned about artists from around the globe, their individual styles, techniques, and mediums. The students were then able to incorporated these into their very own works of art.

Hunt Slonum Year of the Rabbit Project: Hunt is a nationally recognized American Artist known for his “Bunnies”. The students learned about the Chinese Year of the Rabbit and created a painting with Golden Open Acrylics in a subtractive technique with color shapers.

Marilyn Jennings Mixed Media: Marilyn is a Santa Fe artist known for her mixed media pieces. Using magazines and Raven stencils we worked within her color palette to create an acrylic masterpiece.

Golsa Golchini: Golsa is an Iranian artist and is internationally recognized for her drawings on recycled cardboard boxes. We studied her use of shadows and detailed drawings. Each student created several pieces in this style with charcoal and colored pencils.

Leticia Herrera Walkers: Leticia is a Dallas artist whose work is collected across the U.S. She works in impasto which is where paint is laid on thickly to give a painting texture and an almost 3D effect. The students created a gradient background and then using Golden Heavy Body Paints in piping bags, each child created ‘walkers’ and soft shadows.

Aspen with 1950s sheet music: Using acrylic and 1950s sheet music, the students created a beautiful painting of aspen trees.

The students in the ceramics class have had so much fun this session! They started by picking an animal and sculpting it with chosen accessories. Then they made a box with a lid using the slab method. And, their final project was using the pottery wheel. On their last class, students glazed everything they made over the course of the class.

Students worked hard to learn all things photography – they are able to identify basic photography compositions – framing, leading lines, symmetry, and the rule of thirds. They produced photographs with different types of lighting and learned how to “tell a story” about a subject using photography. The class will create a portfolio of their best work on the last day of class. Stay tuned for summer photography camp. It will give the students a bonus opportunity to try out taking Polaroid photographs and put their skills to the test using disposable cameras where every shot counts! Make memories and take your keepsakes with you at the end of this insta-worthy summer camp.

This theatre class focused on acting techniques, including improvisation and character building. Students learned what steps go into creating a musical, from writing the words and music to directing and choreography for the final performance. They also discussed storytelling, including the basics of a story and how to create a cohesive narrative using dialogue. Through the process of writing their musical, students learned the specific format of scriptwriting, and how it differs from writing stories in a prose format.

Students worked on writing a short musical, using familiar elements from the world of Harry Potter and creating a new narrative around the familiar characters. This musical also incorporated musical snippets from the Harry Potter film soundtracks, in which the students combined existing lyrics with new ones relating to their story. This musical was performed during the last class session for family and friends.

The students had a great time conducting, dancing, listening, and identifying instruments. The class worked on coloring projects that taught them about classical composers like Mozart and modern bands such as the Rolling Stones.

Students should be able to show their parents conducting patterns in four counts, controlling how loud and soft the musicians play. The students have general enrichment and exposure to many kinds of music!

Students learned how to talk, sing, and dance like a true superhero and princess through fun crafts, creative movement and imaginative games. They discovered how to count rhythms, distinguish note values and how to breathe using their diaphragm. They also discovered how to perform in front of their classmates and how to sing in unison.

Students were introduced to musical theatre and learned what a triple threat is, how to breathe with their diaphragm and how to sing and dance at the same time. Students performed “It’s A Hard Knock Life” from Annie, and “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman. It’s no easy task to memorize lyrics, dance choreography and their solo parts but these students did it and did it well!

Students had a great time learning the short game; chipping and putting. They played several fun games incorporating these skills. Students can also show parents and family members their golf swings, as well as how their putting and chipping has improved, and what they learned by aiming at targets and golf holes on the green.

In the next skills session students will learn how to hit the golf ball further distances, and how to hit the ball with each club used in a round of golf. Students will be hitting onto the Practice green from a distance at the Midway Campus.

The students in Hoops, Scoops, and Shots have developed new skills in three different sports. Terms such as accuracy, ball control, balance, and teamwork were discussed each week. We also start off any physical activity with a bit of stretching to get warmed up, then they played games to help them develop the necessary skills for each sport all while developing their agility, balance, ball control, endurance and teamwork. The skills learned in this class will continue to follow our students in their future athletic endeavors.

Students have worked hard on valuable skills that will further advance them in their future athletic experiences. Terms such as accuracy, left/right brain crossover, balance, teamwork, and aiming were discussed with the students each week. And they have made tremendous improvements over these past weeks. These skills that have been worked on will continue to help our students in both athletic and general developmental experiences.

A variety of topics were covered in Hola Amigos including toys, clothes and holidays. The students enjoyed playing several different interactive games. At the end of each class the students were able to take home a coloring sheet representing the class topic and their portion of the game. At the end of our review class each student was also able to take home a prize of their choice.

Students in Cookies Crumble have been busy mixing, measuring and baking delicious cookie recipes every week. They have used the stand mixer and several tools in the STEM Kitchen to complete these tasty treats. They have made some very tasty treats including Double Chocolate Rolo Pretzel Turtle Cookies, Palmiers, White Chocolate chip cookies and Lemon Pound Cake cookies – just to name a few.

The students were enthusiastic and eager to try and learn new things. And they accomplished the class goals based on the three keys of magic Make it Fun, Think of Others, Give your Best! Students created their own magic with crafts, practice, demonstration, and fun. All props and materials were provided and by the end of class, each student will have the knowledge and ability to perform their tricks for friends and family. During their time together students created and learned to perform more than eight magic tricks. They played games, shared stories, and solved mysteries.

Students learned to identify the three main components of journalistic writing – The Lede, Nutgraf and Background. They learned how to write a personal interest article and how to interview a subject for a journalistic article. For students not returning to the newspaper club after March 6, their best article will be printed for them to take home and students who are continuing with the newspaper club through May will produce a completed, full-length newsletter.

Stay tuned for more camps this summer, they will be the hottest scoop of the season. These camps will feature creative writing skills, teamwork, and a fast paced environment where campers come together as food critics, travel writers, reviewers of books and movies, and so much more!

Students in Architecture 3Dux have delved into various topics, utilizing STEM and 21st-century skills to innovate solutions to modern problems. The class curriculum covered many subjects: literacy, environmental studies, no-tech coding, and life science. Throughout the course, students engaged in several exciting and challenging projects.

They started with a tiny house geometry challenge, where students used their math and design skills to create a functional and efficient living space. From there, we moved onto engineering adaptive playgrounds, where students had to consider the needs of differently-abled children and create a playground that was inclusive and accessible to all. Other projects included the Emotion Tracker – students designed and built a tool to help people identify and manage their emotions; Alphabet City – students used architecture and design to create a city made entirely of letters; and the Buzzy Bee game – students used no tech coding to create a fun and educational game about the life cycle of bees.

The instructor loved seeing students use their creativity and problem-solving skills to tackle real-world issues and develop innovative solutions was inspiring. The skills they learned in this class will serve them well as they advance their education.

Students had so much fun in Chemistry Crazy. They started by making two invisible inks to write secret messages. Then they moved onto the incredibly popular rocket launching with chemical reactions. Screams of joy could be heard across campus with the Mentos and Coke experiment. Students also loved making elephant toothpaste using yeast to create lots of foam. Realizing that chemistry is all around us students found that watching fat molecules in milk break down with soap was super exciting.

Student explorers participated in a wealth on enriching activities to help them better understand and build knowledge around the habits, food, habitat and lifespan of a frog. They were able to get creative through the construction a frog and then they were able to a hop like a frog in a relay race. They also built their knowledge of what a tree is, its parts and functions with the emphasis on the importance of tree conservation. They explored the different sizes of trees, types of trees in a small group setting and they capped everything off by doing their own leaves observation to better identify the tree family from which it came from.

In this class, students explored an island full of mysterious phenomena and conducted experiments to learn how and why they occur. The scientists use their new knowledge of how physics affects the world around us to “discover” fuzzy monsters that use physics to do battle. In each class, we draw upon our new knowledge to bring our fuzzy monsters together for “battles” in a math-based, class-wide game.

One of their first labs was an experiment with light, where students explored properties of reflection, refraction, prisms, black lights, and the visible light spectrum, and used those properties to create visual illusions. They applied those concepts to plan “attacks” in our math-based game, using light to dazzle and distract the opposing team. Another memorable experiment was exploring the properties of sound waves. Students discovered ways to transmit sound through string, how pitches change with wavelength, and how vibrations from sound can even shatter glass. After all our sound testing, they learned about the human ear and how it perceives sound. Finally, they discussed how even sounds we can’t hear can still affect the worlds around us. Finally, they discussed the importance of environments and the needs of a habitat to create a place that all their fuzzy monsters want to live in.

In Pre STEAM Adventures students received hands-on experience in solving the problems of the world around us in a fun, creative environment. Early in their  problem-solving journey we designed our own version of the new Parish playground. We incorporated ideas ranging from waterslides to race car tracks. We had a blast building hands-on models and working on expressing the ideas we have through our words. We took our talents to space when we designed and built a Mars shelter that we could fit inside of. We talked about shelters, our needs, and what to pack on a flight to Mars. Going on a mission to Mars is a team problem and students flexed those problem-solving skills as they created a standing structure large enough to fit a few crew members inside. Back on Earth, we worked to construct boats that float, even under weights. This was a great opportunity to talk about the scientific method and learn how to run an experiment. We tested our boats to failure, and still had a great time learning about where they failed, why, and what we can learn from the experiment. Overall, Pre STEAM Adventures has been a blast … going from space to the ocean and everywhere in between, and learning so much along the way.

Students explored the laws of motion through a series of inertia tricks and tips. And they also tested the theory of an object in motion staying in motion.

Students will be introduced to a series of activities exploring the principles of force. Students explored what force actually is, and tested its theory with the spring scale project.

The students are learning so much about Broadway! There is a wide range of performance songs the students enjoy singing and dancing to. In addition to the dance steps they learned last semester the students have added new skills such as toe touches, pirouette, leaps, fan kicks and jazz walk.

The Hillcrest Choir happily welcomed many new members this spring! Returning members worked hard to help the new singers feel comfortable with many singing games starting in January. They played games like Here Comes A Blue Bird, Billy Billy, Alabama Gal, and Down In the Valley to build a sense of community while exploring different concepts. Choir members even got to try solo singing and improvisation with the song Down By the Bay. Many students have worked hard to create interesting and entertaining rhymes to include in the song and bravely volunteered to sing them as a solo for their classmates.

In February, the choir began expanding their repertoire by preparing for their spring performances. They have been working hard on memorizing Salaam Aliekum to sing for Grandfriend’s Visiting Day on Thursday, March 30. They have also recently begun preparing for their end-of-the-year Spring Concert with the 3rd and 4th Grade Midway Choir.

Spring choristers are busy preparing for several upcoming events! They got rave reviews for their musical offering in chapel a few weeks ago, and there are plans to do that again before the end of the year. The main event this semester is the Pride of Texas Choral Festival in late April. The choir will perform two selections for a panel of adjudicators, enjoy a short clinic with those adjudicators, and receive our rating. The final concert (at Hillcrest with the Hillcrest choir) is tentatively scheduled for May 18. All pertinent details for these events will be sent well in advance.

Our weekly “star chorister” program has been a wonderful motivational tool for the choristers, so we thought we’d share them with you!

January 11 – all 3rd graders (4th graders were on a field trip)
January 18 – Anya Raval, Sarah Beth Cutshaw, Mahi Duggal, Blakeley Reid
January 25 – Early Release
February 1 – Snow Day
February 6 – Maya Collins, Sophia Singh, Adelena Schwarz
February 15 – Sarah Beth Cutshaw, Calli Kenny, Julia Geissler

Congratulations to all!

In basketball skills students strengthened their dribbling, control of the ball, shooting and passing. They also worked on boosting their confidence, team building and the love of the game. They were also able to spend time focusing on specific skills and following up with drills incorporating the basic skills.

In this cheer class, the students worked on three cheers – Panther Pride, Go Panthers Go, and Victory Cheer. They also learned some tumbling skills such as cartwheels, one hand cartwheels, front walkovers, and back bridge kickovers, round off back handsprings. The students were excited to learn stunts. They learned the following – half extension to thigh stand, teddy bear stunt, and star stunt.

For Cheerleading the children worked on three cheers – Panther Pride, Victory Cheer and Go Panthers Go! They have also been introduced to transition stunts. That’s combining two stunts together and making it one full stunt. The students also worked on timing jumps with the cheers.

These students have made tremendous improvements these past nine weeks! Skills such as ball control, accuracy, and an overall understanding of the fundamentals have helped these students to grow and become better each week. They continually work on forehand and backhand skills, while being introduced to serving and real-game practice. Through the games and rills the students play they are consistently working on reaction time, agility and ball control.

Students in this Soccer Skills spent time working on the fundamentals of ball control including moving, turning and stopping the ball. We also played a variety of games to reinforce the skills they are learning and continued improving striking the ball.

Students have made tremendous improvements! The Pickleball skills the students are learning will serve as a foundation for our future classes and will continue to help them learn this fun game. They have learned terms such as accuracy, forehand, backhand and volley.

These students have done an outstanding job of learning tumbling. They’ve learned how to do forward and backward rolls, straddle roll cartwheels, one hand cartwheel round-offs and some of the children are working on back handsprings and back walkovers with a spot. The students have used their skills and put them together to create a routine.

This ballet class has been working hard on knowing all the dance terminology ballet has to offer. The students have been exploring new steps and adding new combinations into their repertoire. And they have begun to work on their recital dance. We are discussing the ins and out of performing and working on the memorization of their dance. The dancers look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

The students have been working hard on learning their new dance skills. In the tap portion of the class, students are refining the basic steps. And, are beginning to add a level of difficulty in terms of speed as they continue to work on dig brush, shuffle ball change, shuffle ball change step and flap ball heel step.

They have mastered ballet positions of the arms and feet and are also continuing to practice the barre techniques: plié, tendu, dégage, passe, port de bras, echappe and saute passe. The center portion of the class the students worked on the consistency and proper execution of salutes leap, arabesque, chaine turns and curtsey.

In jazz the students continue to work on fan kicks, jazz walks, chaines, and jazz leap.

They look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

We are all pleased with the progress that this class is taking so far this semester. We have begun to work on choreography and the intention of the piece. The dancers are continuing to push the limits with both quality of movement and advancing in the creative process for the concept. The spring recital costumes have been ordered and will be here during the week leading up to the 11th Annual Dance Performance. The dancers look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

Students started out the semester by doing deep stretching exercises to prep for splits, leaps and kicks. They also did basic technique exercises so they could get down to the foundational aspects of chaine turns, pirouettes and kicks in first and second positions. Over the past few weeks the dancers have started learning choreography for the end of year performance and they look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

This class continues to push ahead in learning new steps and discussing the quality of movement. And, as we begin to prepare for the 11th Annual Dance Performance, the students have begun to learn choreography as well as review the technique. Costumes have been ordered and will be here during the week leading up to the performance. The process of memorizing choreography is typically challenging for the dancers, but they are working diligently to produce the material. And, they look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

This class is an absolute dream. We start every class with a quick game to get some energy out then we warm up and stretch a bit. Each week students learn some more moves from different decades and add to the dance we’ve been working on. So far, they love the hammer pants and can’t wait to show off at the performance. These students are respectful, kind, humorous, and always ready to learn. They have made great progress in memory and spatial awareness in dance. The dancers look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

Students started this semester by learning a few moves and working on their hip hop faces. Each class begins with an interactive warm up and dance party to get some energy out. Each week we add new moves to the dance they’ve been working on. The dancers are very excited for the performance this spring and are looking forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

The students have improved on many dance moves such as six-step, coffee grinder, toe touch, tuck jump and grapevine – just to name a few. They continue to learn various combinations and freestyle movements. The students have been working hard on their recital dance and can’t wait to show you what they’ve been working on stage. They look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

In the hip-hop portion of class the students continue to explore freestyle movement working on their toe touches, glides in isolations and then creating several combos out of those moves. On the jazz side they continue to explore ball changes, hitch kick, jazz walks, pirouette, variation of leaps and they’ve added them into combinations across the floor. These allow the students to explore new movements and challenging combinations. They look forward to performing for you on May 13 at 10:00am in Eller Hall.

Students began this semester with deep stretching which is integral to this class. They have worked on placement of single, double and triple pirouettes as well as chaine turns, pique turns, grand jete vs. saute de chat, and begun the process to break down a calypso leap as well. The class is pushing themselves to achieve their goals. And we look forward to seeing the progress they make over the next couple months.

Students have had a lot of fun learning how to play chess. They are constantly increasing their knowledge through fun games and competitions. They have learned the following skills: identifying, checkmate, scholarsmate, forking, developing, pin/exploit, x-ray and skewer. Each child should be playing three or more games of chess outside of class each week. Playing chess at home reinforces everything that we have taught in class. Students have learned how to set up their chess sets by putting the white pieces next to the numbers “1 & 2” listed on the chess board, and by putting the black pieces next to the numbers “7 & 8” listed on the chess board. They have also started using chess clocks during their chess games, which helps them to think fast and to remember whose turn it is. A few terms and phrases students have learned are promotion, pawn draw, illegal move, legal move, touch move, touch take, checkmate, check, grandmaster, “flag”, three move repeat, “removing the defender”, “castling”, “the Golden Rule”, “stabilizing the board”, and “family forks”.

Students have had a lot of fun learning how to play chess. They are constantly increasing their knowledge through fun games and competitions. They have learned the following skills: identifying, checkmate, scholarsmate, forking, developing, pin/exploit, x-ray, and skewer. Each child should be playing three or more games of chess outside of class each week. Playing chess at home reinforces everything that we have taught in class. Students have learned how to set up their chess sets by putting the white pieces next to the numbers “1 & 2” listed on the chess board, and by putting the black pieces next to the numbers “7 & 8” listed on the chess board. They have also started using chess clocks during their chess games, which helps them to think fast and to remember whose turn it is. A few terms and phrases that our students have learned are promotion, pawn draw, illegal move, legal move, touch move, touch take, checkmate, check, grandmaster, “flag”, three move repeat, “removing the defender”, “castling”, “the Golden Rule”, “stabilizing the board”, and “family forks”.

The students in this class are very smart! They are able to debate most topics without any preparation and are getting better at rebuttals. Over the course of this class the conclusions have become much stronger as well. One of their favorite topics so far has been “If students should grade teachers.” They worked hard to lay everything out and weighed all the pros and cons of this. The students really support each other and are proud of their progress.

So far this semester students have been learning about maps and how they help us. They have drawn a map of the Hillcrest campus and are now getting creative by designing a map of a city of their own creation. They are learning about what infrastructures are needed for a city to run, such as hospitals and police stations. And are adding what they think would make their city fun, such as parks and playgrounds.

Students have been building on what they learned last semester and are learning about alterable values. This allow students to create complex situations that can’t be done with a single line of code. With this type of coding concept, the students are learning how to create effects and outcomes using coding statements. They are also learning code to add temporary invincibility, character health bars and character conversations. Additionally, they are getting really creative as they design the worlds their games take place in and the backstories of their game characters. All these concepts help them create a more in-depth experience when users play their games.

Students have been working together to build their vehicles using LEGOs. They are near finishing their builds. Once done they will put their vehicles through simple challenges to test their cars. After the first set of challenges students will then begin brainstorming how they will modify their cars to tackle the next round of challenges. Students will also soon begin work on designing the “track” for their classmates to drive.

Students spent the first part of the semester building their structures and a home base. They are now gathering resources and dividing up responsibilities among themselves. Students are learning that they must juggle “playing” and “working” as they must complete daily goals to receive bonus items to help them. The second half of the course will have students preparing to enter the Nether, a challenging realm that will require them to have armor and swords.

Students spent the first part of the semester building their structures and a home base. They are now gathering resources and dividing up responsibilities among themselves. Students are learning that they must juggle “playing” and “working” as they must complete daily goals to receive bonus items to help them. The second half of the course will have students preparing to enter the Nether, a challenging realm that will require them to have armor and swords.

Students have been completing coding lessons inside Minecraft Education. They started off first learning how to use the software, then creating simple 4-line coding snippets. Class lessons build on one another and are slowly getting larger. Students are now incorporating group play which will have them working together on the same server. They will also be opening the students’ accounts to be able to access Minecraft Education from home on our return from Spring Break.

Students have been completing coding lessons inside Minecraft Education. They started off first learning how to use the software, then creating simple 4-line coding snippets. Lessons build on one another and are slowly getting larger. Students are now incorporating group play which will have them working together on the same server. They will also be opening the students’ accounts to be able to access Minecraft Education from home on our return from Spring Break.

Students have been working hard to develop their stage name, hand picking their song to sing, and practicing how they want to lip sync and perform for their music video. Some students have had to overcome stage fright when the camera comes on or learn how to develop confidence but each week, we see constant improvement. Students will soon bring their costumes and video footage is being prepared. Students will be working on the computers to put their video together in the later part of the course.