SMARTS Beats & Empowers

SMARTS Beats is a percussion-based learning program for PK-12 (and up to the age of 21) students with developmental and behavioral challenges. SMARTS Beats uses hand drums and other percussion instruments to engage students in lessons that emphasize social emotional learning, fine motor development, and arts integration approaches. Students may drum in response to comprehension questions from a text or practice addition and subtraction by counting with the drums. Students in this program improve with foundational SEL skills such as making eye contact, taking turns, listening for instructions, and more. Originally developed as a pilot project in 2011, SMARTS Beats centers on four goals:

  1. Promote academic learning through unconventional/alternative techniques.
  2. Increase musical knowledge, understanding, and appreciation.
  3. Foster a sense of teamwork and community.
  4. Develop students’ sense of pride, confidence and satisfaction.

SMARTS Empowers extends the learning of SMARTS Beats to additional arts disciplines - visual art, dance, and theater - and was piloted in 2019. SMARTS Empowers integrates arts education into students’ daily classroom activities, emphasizing social emotional learning, fine motor development, and arts integration approaches. Students may practice crossing the midline in dance choreography that asks students to make shapes and lines with their arms. In visual art, students practice finger dexterity as they create original art from a variety of mediums. Students in theater work on making eye contact in an activity where they must pretend to pass an imaginary ball.  Students in this program improve with foundational SEL skills such as left and right coordination, following directions, mirroring and imitating patterns, decision-making, and communication. The goal of this program is to empower students through art forms and connect their classroom learning to these positive experiences. SMARTS Beats and Empowers follows the same model using the knowledge and curriculum we have built since 2010. SMARTS Empowers:

  1. Promotes academic learning through unconventional/alternative techniques.
  2. Increases knowledge, understanding, and appreciation in visual arts, music, dance, theater, and creative writing.
  3. Fosters a sense of teamwork and community.
  4. Develop students’ sense of pride, confidence and satisfaction.

 

 

CONTACT US

Please enter your name.
Please enter a message.
Send

SMARTS at Ohio One
25 East Boardman Street, First Floor
Youngstown, OH 44503

330-574-2787 (ARTS)
info@smartsartschool.org