St. Dominic School Fine Arts Program

All Pre-K through Eighth Grade students receive Music Instruction once a week with a 30-minute class session. Music Instruction is provided by Mrs. Nan Wood. Mrs. Wood has a Bachelor Degree in Music from Illinois State University and is a professional pianist and harpist.

She also recently received the Golden Apple Award-- a well-deserved accolade! See the WGEM video and article here: St. Dominic School Teacher Wins Golden Apple

All students perform in a Veterans Day Program and/or Christmas Program each year. Due to CoVid-19, our Veterans Day Program in 2020 was virtual, with all students outside holding flags, being droned from above! You can view the video by visiting this link: 2020 Virtual Veterans Day Program.

Students recently performed in our 2021 Veterans Day Program as well as a Christmas program. In both, students demonstrated their creative skills by performing on a variety of instruments: guitars, bucket drums, chimes, bells, electric keyboards, percussion instruments and even boomwackers!

During the year, music instruction involves learning how to read music notation, rhythmic values, a variety of songs and song styles, the biographies of famous composers, and more. Students learn about instruments of the orchestra and have opportunities to learn to play many of these instruments.

PMO Band is offered to all Fifth through Eighth Grade students, and PMO Choir is offered to all Fourth through Eighth Grade students. They meet once each week at St. Dominic School or Quincy Notre Dame High School and perform in several concerts each year. (There are currently some restrictions due to CoVid-19.) Click here to visit the PMO Band and Choir Facebook page.

Private Piano lessons are also offered to St. Dominic students before and after school each day. Lessons are 30 minutes, once a week with a fee of $10 plus the cost of music books. These funds are then used to purchase materials for the music and computer classrooms, so it is a win-win situation for everyone. A piano or electronic keyboard at home would be required for at-home practice. Students have opportunities to participate in Christmas and Spring recitals, although this is not mandatory.

Below are several of the grants that were used to purchase items for our music classroom.

The KHQA “One Class At A Time” program is sponsored by KHQA TV, Continental Cement, Green America Recycling and Titan. These sponsors awarded St. Dominic School $1000.00 for new percussion instruments, new sheet music, interactive Smartboard music software, CD’s, Music Express curriculum, and numerous teacher resources. We continue to use these instruments every week - they are very popular with the students!

Another grant was awarded from the Mary Ridder Cherny Fund through the Community Foundation of West Central Illinois and Northeast Missouri. $375.00 was given to St. Dominic School to design a Digital Keyboard lab. New keyboard stands, benches, sustain pedals, and piano and harp music has been purchased to be used with our six digital keyboards and harp. This has allowed many students to now take private lessons after school. Currently 21 students are enrolled in piano lessons. Parents pay $10.00 for a 30 minute lesson with Mrs. Nan Wood, the Music Instructor, but those funds are used to purchase materials for the music classroom. It is a win-win situation for our school families as well as our school.

The Mary Ridder Cherny Fund also granted funds to purchase Piano Marvel software and Music Play Online Music Curriculum.

Western Catholic Union (WCU) awarded St. Dominic School the “Classroom Assistance Program” grant of $250.00 to purchase a two-year subscription to Music K-8. This curriculum provides new music, CD’s, student reproducibles, and teacher lesson plans. It incorporates hands-on teaching with Orff instruments as well as articles and lessons on famous composers, music history and music theory. All of their resources are correlated with state and national standards, and work well with the new instruments that were purchased with the KHQA “One Classroom At A Time” grant.

Mercantile Bank of Quincy awarded our music department a grant to purchase Music Express, one of the most respected music curriculum on the market (along with Music K-8). Students receive full-color music magazines with many musical activities, stories, games, instrumental activities and hands-on fun!

Another grant was provided by the Adams County Medical Alliance. With these funds, we purchased a large 12' parachute and musical CD's and games to use along with the parachute. This "healthy student" grant material allows students to be physically active during the school day while focusing on music. But all they know is they are having fun!

We also have had a very generous Magic Match sponsor, which has allowed us to purchase new music resources including Music K-8 Student music magazines, the Teacher Handbook and CD's that go along with the curriculum. We also purchased the very successful "Music Ace" Software program. Both are very nice additions to our music program.

The students of St. Dominic School now have many ways to showcase their musical talents, explore their creativity, learn how to speak and perform effectively, be physically active, and advance their musical knowledge and experiences. We are profoundly grateful to each of these organizations for their support, and proud of the way it has allowed us to make so many opportunities available for our students.

Mrs. Nan Wood, Music Instructor

email: nwood@stdominicquincy.org