Elementary School Residency Well Underway

The Earl Wentz and William Watkins Foundation is currently in residence at Winterfield Elementary School in Charlotte, NC. We have created a progressive and challenging curriculum for second grade students to introduce them to the creative process while working to increase their reading skills.

 

Our focus involves recognition and development of the imagination, daily work on the five senses, discovery and application of elements of story in creating small scenes, role-playing, learning to present in front of groups, and work with concepts of "similar" and "different" in fairy tales and fables from diverse cultural origins.

 

Integrating song and movement into our work, we use creative play to help children learn and grow,   develop social intelligence, and create their own stories and scenes as they discover the delights of the worlds within them and around them.

 

The program developed out of discussions between Winterfield Elementary School principal Regina Boyd and foundation chairman William Watkins in Autumn 2013 as a follow-up to our Summer Musical Theatre Workshop that was held in August 2013 in partnership with the school and the Communities In School organization. The foundation wanted to see how we could expand our work with young Charlotte-area students and principal Boyd was eager to continue our association as well as to advance her goals of more integration of the arts into her school's curriculum.  "I want my students to have as many opportunities to engage in learning as well as being exposed to the arts and all that our neighborhood and city have at their disposal," Boyd said in a recent communication with Watkins.

 

Watkins says about the program, "I am thrilled to be working with the students at Winterfield and with fine educators on the order of Ms. Boyd and [second-grade teacher] Zoe Riebli. Ms. Boyd    totally gets the importance of arts education and has had other successes in bringing arts education to the Winterfield students, particularly with the "adoption" of the school by the Charlotte Symphony and the instruction the symphony provides the students.  I believe firmly that our foundation's approaches dovetail beautifully with her goals. The students are so eager to learn and are making great progress in the short time we've been there. Ms. Riebli is terrific about working together to see that our programs complement each other so that the students reap the rewards of our mutual efforts."

 

"Thank you so much for [working with] our class...The students love you!" Ms. Riebli recently told Watkins.  The feeling is definitely mutual from the foundation to the school and the twenty-one students we are currently privileged to work with.

 

To inquire about a residency at your school with one or more of our teaching artists using our unique approach, please click here to e-mail us at educationalinquiries@ewwwf.org.

Registration Now Open

  

We're excited to announce that our Summer Musical Theatre Workshop for young people ages 8 to 14 will return to Charlotte this August for ten full days (August 4-8 and 11-16). 

  

Registration is now open!  Please click here to download a full-color application and brochure. 

  

And be sure to forward this e-mail or the application to any students you know who may be interested in participating in this exciting learning opportunity based on the educational methods of Earl Wentz and a program he co-created and taught for 13 years at South Shore Convservatory of Music in Hingham, MA.  (That program is still in operation under the directorship of a former student who emerged from the progam.)

  

Faculty members John Coffey, William Watkins, and Stephanie Foster will be back from New York to instruct the 20 students who will participate in this two-week intensive workshop that immerses young people who have shown interest and ability in the performing arts into the creative process.

 

Students will participate in theatre games, discover the relationship between sound and text in storytelling, develop small scenes and monologues, explore stage movement as a means of expressing character, and work on vocal technique and the integration of singing with acting and movement in producing a short theatre piece.

 

This is an exploration and process-oriented workshop rather than one that is geared to a final finished production. During the two weeks, we will build toward a workshop presentation that showcases learnings at the end of the second week for an invited audience of parents and friends.

  

Tuition for the entire two-week worskhop is $300.  Thanks to the generosity of our foundation and you, our supporters, we are able to keep the costs low and also to provide scholarships for qualified students in financial need.  All students must pay something; however it is our policy that through our sliding fee scale and scholarships that no student will be turned away based on the ability to pay.  Making arts education accessible in this way was an important ideal for Earl Wentz and remains so for William Watkins and the foundation.

  

Financial data for students and their families is kept strictly confidential.