Secrets of the Heart®

Secrets of the Heart TV digital curriculum is available in 27, 15 or 8 week lengths for UTK – K (Series I) and 1st & 2nd grade (Series II) any school with an internet capability. sothtv.org

The Secrets of the Heart TV on-campus program assigns a professional artist to support the 27 or 15 week digital curriculum with monthly visits.  This requires a minimum of three classes with up to 30 students per class. (Los Angeles County Schools only)

• Parent Workshop: Provides an overview of what students will experience during the digital residency and introduces a family arts project. Example Series I project: Children, parents and family members create a vision board (we call it a Dream Board) with images that represent the family’s hopes and dreams for the future. (Teaching Artist support is available in Los Angeles County Schools)

   

• Professional Development: Offers participating TK and K teachers an opportunity to learn the program’s goals and expected outcomes and gives them a preview of some of the arts activities students will experience. The professional development is open to all teachers, regardless of grade level, and staff. (Available by special request for Los Angeles County Schools)
  
  

• Opening Performance: Introduces a 45-minute interactive performance by the residency’s Teaching Artists for participating TK-K classes and other grade levels as space permits. Children learn the Young Masters Pledge and the first five secrets of the heart – friendship and a smile, kindness, imagination and gratitude – through music, dance, drumming, story and American Sign Language (ASL). On the stage is a “Friendship Tree” decorated with paper hearts expressing the wishes and hopes of the students and adults in the school. Wishes become dreams! The auditorium is filled with joy and anticipation, which lays the foundation for what will follow. (Delivered in auditoriums digitally, accompanied by a Teaching Artist support in on-campus programs in Los Angeles County Schools only)

• Music workshops: Workshop example: Children learn about Hawaii and the ukulele. They discover the  instrument’s origin, listen to how it sounds, and they explore the first secrets of the heart, friendship and a smile. With the guidance of their Teaching Artist, they learn the parts that make up a song, compose their own lyrics and learn movement to the music. (Additional digital workshops include introductions to different drums and percussion instruments, violin, cello, double bass, guitar, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet and flute.)
  
  

• Dance workshops: Workshop example: Children visit the country of Liberia, Africa. They learn that because of language differences, the people of Africa welcome visitors to their villages with dance. They learn a call and response in the Yoruba language and they learn its meaning and movements. They discuss the third secret, kindness, and that welcoming is an act of kindness. (Additional digital workshops include ballet, modern, traditional dances of Israel, West Africa, Latin dance and hip hop.)
  
  
• Theatre Arts workshops: Workshop example: Children explore the art of Mexican artist, Diego Rivera. They close their eyes and “enter” a painting using their five senses to experience the image and what it represents. They use the fourth secret, imagination, to create an original story about that work of art. (Additional digital workshops include learning about the origins of theatre in Greece, pantomime and body language.)

   

• Visual Arts workshops: Workshop example: Students explore hats and headdresses worn around the world, design and create their own Young Masters headdress, which they decorate and use throughout the year for assemblies, reading time, special imagination and creativity time. Students learn that people all over the world have many things in common. One of those is that people from diverse cultures wear hats and headdresses for different reasons. Students learn color, shape, line and form. (Additional digital workshops include:  drawing, puppet making, and flip books.)

   

• Rehearsals: Two rehearsals prepare students for the culmination assembly. (Teaching Artist available in the On-Campus program in Los Angeles Schools)
  
  
• Culmination: The children wear their headdresses, confidently perform their songs, dances, and stories for family and friends.  Dream Boards made by the children and their families are displayed on the walls of the auditorium.

 At the end of culmination, schools may opt to dedicate a Friendship Tree where  children and families join in a procession to the school yard and conduct a ceremony, they dedicate the Friendship Tree, a live tree that represents part of the opening performance.