The Artist Smart Project is jointly funded by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the government of New Brunswick. The School Program funds art projects which are based on Fine Arts curricular outcomes and are a collaboration between one or more teachers and one or more artists.

All teachers of Harcourt School are working with local Fine Arts Professional, Stephen Kincaid of Rexton, to bring an innovative idea of combining several curricular subjects together through theatre, dance, improvisation and prop creation-The "Speaking Without Words" project has been and continues to be an interesting, fun and new approach to education for our children and all adults who work in our building educating our children to think creatively and critically through education in the arts. 

The students will be working on a multi-age, project based learning model. This combines the knowledge, past experiences, group and personal creativity of all students from grade K-5. It is our hope to combine the Intensive French students with the Anglophone students to create a fun, all inclusive atmosphere for the final product.

Students will collaborate on creation and development of many aspects through theatre and music. Initially, students will write and sequence skits. They, in collaboration with the Art teacher will create graphic illustrations through pre-visualizing on paper. Students will research and create paper mache masks as part of their working props. Students will work with the music person to add interpretive movement to the staging of their work. They will work on storyboarding which will lead to the larger product of creating a three part theatre production. This production will be showcased for parents and community at the end of the project or a ‘soire’

  We plan on implementing cross-curricular activities and inter-disciplinary teaching to accomplish our goals. We will incorporate technology in the initial phase of the project through research about traditional masks in different cultures throughout the world. We will research types of theatrical masks and the purposes they serve. Students will choose the type of cultural mask they want to make and will describe the masks through descriptive writing.

 The project will incorporate theatre, music, art, physical education and technology into creating props for storytelling. Music will be incorporated with the movement and we will write several storyboard skits leading to a small three part play.

 Reading and Writing outcomes for K-5 will be incorporated into the activities. Writing standards: development of ideas; organization; word choice; voice; sentence fluency and conventions will be the main focus of this venture. We will connect with the several Physical Education outcomes such as dance, creative movement, interpretive dance and general gross-body movement. This will be aligned with music concepts to enhance the whole presentation. The new STEM Science model will work well into this project in that we will be using critical thinking skills and guided discovery methods of learning. The Language Arts connection between science and writing will also be part of the overall plan of this endeavor. We are an inclusive school working with the Jennifer Katz model of inclusion connecting with the UDL model for inclusive education. Our special needs children will also contribute to the project following the above mentioned models of learning.

The Artist Smart Project is jointly funded by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the government of New Brunswick. The School Program funds art projects which are based on Fine Arts curricular outcomes and are a collaboration between one or more teachers and one or more artists.