Hillside School’s visual arts curriculum challenges students to be well-cultured and creative. All Hillside students, from preschool to third grade, are exposed to a diverse, hands-on curriculum.  Students will not only learn about art, but they will also experience a wide range of art media. The visual arts program emphasizes creativity and innovation in the classroom, essential 21st-century skills. In addition, there is also an emphasis on activities across the curriculum with social studies, sciences, math, and world language.

Hillside art students will be exposed to the art elements of line, color, shape, texture, value, and space, as well as a great amount of art history. They will create sketches, drawings, paintings, collages and prints. In addition, we have a kiln and a ceramic program in which students will do hands-on work to create their own ceramic art objects.  

With the aid of SMART Board technology and the internet, our students have access to the largest art museum in the world: the World Wide Web.  For example, Hillside students will have virtual insights into artists' studios, museums, even virtual tours of the prehistoric wall paintings of the caves of Lascaux in France. In third grade, Hillside students participate, direct, edit, and exhibit a video art project, which will be presented to the community in May, at our annual school-wide art show. Our video art project is a great example of art with 21st-century technology.

With the motto that “everyone is an artist,” the Hillside Visual Arts program challenges our students to bring out their creativity and to apply it to their everyday lives.