Music Visions
Music Visions is a gifted and talented program for grades 3-5 in District Six elementary schools.
If you would like for your child to be in Music Visions, please read the information below, and note the nomination window September 11-29 when you can pick up a nomination form and nominate your child in the front office of the school. Students will be screened between November 2023 - January 2024 and must qualify in order to participate in Visions in 2024-2025.
Spartanburg School District Six provides an artistically and musically gifted and talented program, entitled Visions. The following is a list of qualities artistically and musically gifted children often display. Definition: The gifted are those children whose abilities, talents, and potential for accomplishment are so outstanding that they require special provisions to meet their educational needs. District Six provides instruction for students identified as gifted and talented in music, in keeping with South Carolina State Regulation 43-220.
Students gifted in music usually share one or more of these traits:
- High quality of work and task commitment to one of the arts such as music
- Arts involvement and interest either in class or on their own
- Willingness to explore arts’ problems
- Flexible thinking; uses many approaches to solving a problem
- Creative potential
- Goes beyond the obvious, sees unusual relationships
- Thinks of doing projects in their spare time
- Examines and observes things very thoroughly
- Likes to elaborate on an idea and add details
- Takes work seriously and completes it
- High energy level
- Self-direction
Spartanburg School District Six will accept nominations for the Visions Artistically and Musically Gifted and Talented Program during September 11-29. Music Visions –Grades 2-4.
Once a nomination form is completed and returned, students participate in a screening process in November using a test based on the music rubrics outlined in the South Carolina Identification of Artistically Gifted and Talented Students: Referral, Screening and Assessment. Please click on the state department link for detailed rubrics (Appendix M) and screening process details: https://ed.sc.gov/instruction/standards/advanced-academic-programs/gifted-and-talented/gifted-and-talented-identification/
Students who qualify for Music Visions begin classes in the fall of the following school year, for thirty minutes twice a week. Classes focus on music literacy, history, composition, and independent study.
Music literacy is showcased in Music Visions students' ability to read music on the treble staff and play soprano recorders. They attend a concert by the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra, performing The Carnegie Hall Link Up Music. They accompany the orchestra by playing their recorders and singing. Students reflect on the performance by writing thank you notes to sponsoring area businesses, The Spartanburg Music Foundation, and the orchestra.
In preparation for the Link Up Concert, students also learn about classical music and music history. Students study about the composers they will hear at the concert, and many learn to play the melodies of famous compositions on their recorders, or sing melodies based on orchestral works.
Students also focus on composition. After learning to read and play recorder melodies, students can improvise, or make up their own melodies, on their recorders. Following these exercises, students can begin to write melodies on staff paper or on computer programs, and learn the process of composing.
Each school year a different arts theme is celebrated in Music Visions. Recently we have had STEAM units, incorporating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math into our music classes. Last year we explored the world through music, focusing on how music reflects different world cultures. This year we are focusing on "Coming Together Through Music." How can we serve our community through our performances? Singing at football games? Nursing Homes? Dickens of a Christmas? After our year-long study, we complete an independent study. Some students choose to write a song, others present slide presentations. The year ends with our Summer Arts Institute! Students in grades three-five can participate in the Summer Arts Institute at Dawkins Middle School. Students can attend classes in visual art, storytelling, creative movement and music, all in keeping with our theme "Coming Together through the Arts!"