March was Music in our Schools and Youth Art Month. Phenix Elementary celebrated with a joint collaboration March 29. Third, fourth and fifth-graders performed a musical entitled “Music through Musicals and Movies.”

Students danced and sang to popular songs from movies including Zootopia, Aladdin, Moana and the Peanuts Movie. Students had the opportunity to explore the history of Broadway through the Tony Award winning musical, Dear Evan Hansen, and Best Musical of the year Hamilton: An American Musical. Through these pieces of music, students explored concepts of caring for others and being proud of the person you were meant to be.

Directly following the musical, students escorted their parents around the halls admiring the artwork hung from one end of the school to the other. All of the students learned about and were inspired by Claude Monet’s “Japanese Footbridge.”

Prekindergarten, kindergarten and first grade students created their own masterpieces based on Monet’s painting. Second and third-graders created warm and cool seascape backgrounds with their own invented bridge designs.

An imagination station was set up for students to draw and create their own made-up, mixed up animals. There was also a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) station for students to test their projects. Kindergarten and first-graders completed a STEAM project and created bridges with toothpicks and marshmallows. Fourth and fifth-graders also built bridges out of Popsicle sticks, glue and various materials from home, but their bridges had to hold 15 lbs of weight.