The Fine Arts Flash

Take a glimpse inside any of our Elgin ISD Fine Arts classrooms and you will find creativity and collaboration at it's best! Both the outstanding teachers and our amazing students work together tirelessly to create memorable experiences for all. The fall semester is a time of great activity and partnerships and we are grateful for the support of our amazing administration, our parents, and the Elgin community at large.

The music room has been full of amazing singers, players, dancers, actors, and smiles! We have started playing classroom instruments such as rhythm sticks, shakers, drums, boomwackers, scarves and more! The younger grades have been working on finding the steady beat, and creating rhythms, and the older grades have been working on their notes!

In other news, we have been celebrating Hispanic History Month! Each year, we observe Hispanic History Month by recognizing the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture, and achievements in the United States. Students have been learning about different dances, instruments, singers, and influencing Hispanic composers! We will also be celebrating Hispanic History Month with a program on October 8th!

As usual we started off the year with LINES! Lines have been in all the first projects of the year, for all grade levels. Coming up, kindergarten and first grade will be working to improve their cutting and gluing skills. Hopefully we won’t have a glue explosion!! Second and fifth graders will be learning about the Russian artist Kandinski, but learning about different styles that the artist had. Third grade will be learning about Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artists and his blue period. And finally, fourth graders will be doing one of my favorite projects of all time…Tim Burton inspired portraits, however this year we will be adding extra steps! I can’t wait to share all the new things that will come this year!

Since the first day of school on Aug. 13, the Harvest Ridge Elementary music room has been a campus hotspot for learning, laughter—and lots of booming beats, with flashes of electric guitar and enthusiastic singing seeping into the halls. Our goal from day 1 was to get the students excited about music and the many musical instruments they’d be exploring throughout the school year. Our classroom is blessed with dozens of percussion instruments, including close to a dozen drum options, and they’ve already been put to ample use.

The students have also enjoyed the presence of my personal percussion box, snare drum and electric guitar, which has led to a number of songwriting collaborations (“Best Day of School,” “The Blob On the Ceiling,” “Listen to the Teacher,” et al.). This week we’ll be exploring the wonderful world of the ukelele—we’ve got 25 brand new ones in the supply closet!—before diving deeper into the world of Hispanic music. The real joy so far has been seeing how enthusiastic most of the students have been about coming to music class and their openness to not only learning about music, but blissfully creating it as well.

EES Music has started off the 2025 school year by getting to know each other. We’ve spent time reviewing basic music theory; music notation, played rhythm games, keyboard familiarity, tapped out melodies on the xylophone, and started beginning recorder technique. The third, fourth, and fifth grade classes will be receiving their recorders in October and will participate in weekly sight-reading exercises. In addition, we will be composing a class song. Each class brings their unique experience to music class and we will spend the last five minutes of each class trying to capture the “magic” for a semester’s end exhibition.

Kinder, first and second graders have spent time singing and dancing. They’ve actually taught Mr. Rios some of the songs that they learned the previous year! We’ve played rhythm games, tapped out quarter note, half and eighth note rhythms, and played coordination and synchronization games. Each class brings their own unique dynamic to class. One day the students in Ms. Hinds' first grade class spontaneously off-ramped into composing a song named ‘Noah’s Red Shoes’.

All classes have begun preparing for their upcoming public performances in November and December.

Students at Elgin Elementary have had a fantastic start to the year learning about studio expectations, our class mascot Frida Kahlo, and creating sketch book which we will add to throughout the school year. Kindergarten-3rd grades are learning about the use of lines shapes and have been experimenting with various mediums to create original artworks. 4th and 5th grade students are working on projects that take multiple weeks including weaving, op art, and investigating 3D shape building. We are looking forward to sharing works in process with families during open house and our upcoming collaboration with the library.

In the last month, our musical rotations have learned about Johann Sebastian Bach and now, George Friederich Handel! By listening to their very different approaches to oratory and instrumentation, we can talk about history, mathematics and even fashion! With the younger students, we have enjoyed dancing and singing to well known interactive songs. It has been great fun to introduce instruments, tone and basic music scales. Today I brought out the xylophone and made them listen to each note for as long as the sound lasted. So much can be achieved by making music fun. Our student ambassadors have also done such a wonderful job welcoming our music room guests by making great introductions, reading our social contract and having our guests sign our contract as well.

In art class, students explored the concept of monochromatic color, which means using only one color along with its tints (lighter versions) and tones (darker versions).

Each grade level created a self-portrait using only shades of their assigned class color. Kindergarten used red, 1st grade used purple, 2nd grade used blue, 3rd grade used orange, 4th grade used yellow, and 5th grade used green.

This project helped students understand how a single color can be transformed in many ways while expressing their own unique identity through art.

At Trinity Ranch, we have been working hard in starting the music program from scratch, and there are several things that all of the grade levels are working on all at the same time. 4th and 2nd-grade are currently preparing for shows, 4th-grade will have their show on Thursday, October 9th, and they have been working hard on all of their songs which are Hispanic Heritage Month themed. 2nd-grade just started their show preparation last week, and will be having their show on Thursday, October 30th, their theme will be Fall and Halloween.

We have just turned in interest letters for the 4th/5th grade choir, and we will be having our first rehearsal on Tuesday, September 30th. They will have three performances, including a Veteran’s Day show, Holiday themed show, as well as the EISD Spring Festival in May. Aside from upcoming performances, each of the grade levels have been working hard on engaging activities in music, all including things such as solfege, tempo/meter, rhythm, etc.

EIS Theatre is gearing up for the EIS Hispanic Heritage Celebration, Thursday, October 2nd in the EIS gym at 5:30 PM. See you then!!

The Elgin Middle School band has been working hard since the start of the school year on their pep tunes for their EMS pep rallies. They have also been working on fundamentals to improve their skills. They will be performing with the Elgin HS band at the October 24th game at the Elgin HS stadium!

The past six weeks Mrs. Kirschner and Ms. Galvan's students have been reviewing the elements of art: line and color!

We have made air, land, and sea zentangles with black and white to make them pop! Then we practiced our skills of hatching and cross-hatching by mimicking other artists using drawings of roses, a car, a penguin, and suitcases. Then we entered the world of Vincent Van Gogh and his Starry Night. Students had to keep his cypress tree, stars and wind whirls but make it into their own version adding a special item to it. We had space ships, taco cats, bright pink color, and a football for some of our additions. We also studied the artists, Piet Mondrian and Vassily Kandinsky. Now we have moved to color theory. Did you know Sir Issac Newton discovered the first color wheel while quarantining away from the plague? We made melting snow cones using either warm or cool colors for our flavoring, and then the opposite for our background. They look like we are back on summer break sitting by the pool enjoying a snow cone. Next week we move on to primary colors with paint and monochromatic blues with Picasso!

As you head over to High School Credit Art 1 with Ms. Core you will see students preparing origami monarch butterflies and paper flowers to decorate campus for Hispanic Heritage month. They are also studying several folk art traditions from Mexico and South American countries. Students will choose one piece to research and gain inspiration in order to create their own artwork. Prior to this the students spent the first week getting to know each other and building their class communities. One step to this was creating their own individual identity cubes. After completing those, the classes moved on to experiment with their first process art style of the year, squeegee painting! Through squeegee painting we were able to have several conversations about color theory before moving into our Elements of Art review on all seven elements. After discussions and study students have now completed either a zine (miniature book made from one piece of paper) or still life art piece divided into the seven elements. Through these projects students were able to share what they knew about line, shape, form, color, value, texture, and space, research them more in depth, and then demonstrate their knowledge through drawing and design. We are looking forward to the upcoming Hogeye and Dia de los Muertos art and design competitions, as well as diving further into color theory!

Our EHS Artists and teachers have kicked off the 2025-2026 school year with a bang! Please click on this link to see the August EHS Visual Arts Newsletter as well as September's Visual Arts Newsletter.

It’s a new year and new stage for Elgin Theater!

The first six weeks have been busy with auditions for our Fall show, and getting

to know one another! We are excited for you to know, we will be producing “A Christmas Carol” by

Charles Dickens, and adapted by our own Mr. Wilson! We have an amazing cast

of 24 high school students! We also are excited to have ten of our EMS 8th grade

students, participating as ensemble! I am honored to direct such an amazing

group of students!

Mark your calendars for the first weekend in December, and come see our

amazing cast perform for the first time on our new stage, in our new PAC!

We can’t wait to see you at the show!

Please find our Spring C.A.M.P. Newsletter here!

Follow our student run social media accounts for up to date information, so you won’t miss anything C.A.M.P-related!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095291364797

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ehs.choir.musicaltheatre/

Tiktok: ehs.choir.musicaltheatre

The Elgin High School Wildcat Band has roared into this 2025-2026 school year with their field production, Breathe. After a successful 1st marching contest performance on 9/27 with the full band finishing 3rd in their division and the drumline sweeping 1st in their division, The Wildcat Band looks forward to competitions in Bastrop this Saturday, 9/29 before competing in UIL Region 26 Marching Contest on 10/21 with the possibility of advancing to AREA marching soon after. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled during the halftime performances to spot the new elements to the field production.