Teaching Artist

buildingdulcimerw-kidA teaching artist is an artist who teaches and integrates her art form into a school’s curriculum. With a Master of Science degree in Education, Thomasina uses music, poetry and visual arts to help students of all ages discover their own creative abilities throughout the United States. In January of 1999, she was accepted to become part of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts’ Master Teaching Artist Program. In addition, her four years of studies and graduation as a Facilitator of Music Improvisation with Grammy Award winning cellist, David Darling and Music for People reaffirm her belief that music is in each one of us and is just waiting for the right time to emerge.

staff-w--instrumentsTeaching Artist Mentor: In 2009, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism (CC&T) decided to create The Teaching Artist Pilot Mentorship Program. This program was designed to help Teaching Artists strengthen their skills, understanding, and abilities, particularly in the areas of developing documentation, and assessing high quality arts learning experiences. Thomasina was chosen to be one of the mentors in this program in order to help the CC&T strengthen its core teaching artist program. Thomasina leads Arts-in-Education workshops and training sessions at conferences and schools throughout the U.S. The most important part of her work, however, (and her favorite job) is working in classrooms directly with children and teachers helping them to create original songs, visual arts and poetry around a selected curricular topic. Themes vary from Mathematics to Native American studies to Exploring Art Masterpieces with Music & Poetry to Improving writing skills etc.

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Quotes

"Thank you for singing with us. I liked learning all the math songs. I love math!" - Robby

"Thank you for teaching us about Connecticut in a very fun way. I love how we did a lot of arts like drawing, writing, playing instruments and dancing." - Kenny

"Her impact on the entire fourth grade, as well as the entire school, was tremendous... She enthusiastically involved students in a variety of activities that integrated math, language arts, social studies, science and the arts... truly outstanding projects and programs." - Richard L. Watson, Principal, Myrtle Stevens School, Rocky Hill, CT

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Workshops

Exploring Art Masterpieces Through Music and Poetry- Viewing great works of art becomes an active adventure in this playful, participation-based workshop. Musician, Thomasina Levy leads students through exercises and activities to help students produce musical and written responses to masterpiece paintings. A performance of the students’ creations can be planned as a culminating activity.

Build and Play Your Own Mountain Dulcimer - Children and adults of all ages learn to build and play this deceptively easy instrument.  Students construct and paint their own cardboard/wood mountain dulcimers from kits. Thomasina will then teach the students how to play basic songs on their own mountain dulcimers. This is one of her more popular workshops.

Let’s Write a Song - This multi-day workshop leads students through the process of learning how to write their own songs. Themes and topics are endless... frequently schools will pick a theme that ties in with a specific academic topic in the school’s curriculum. At the end of the program students perform their original song before a selected audience.

Click HERE for All the Workshops