Activities & Field Trips

Poetry Slams

For the past five years, TMS students have been enthusiastically participating in a celebration of spoken word (a form of artistic performance in which poems or lyrics are spoken rather than sung; like blues poems or rap, it takes life when a poet adds beat, music, and body language to magnify the image, sound and voice of the poem). To enhance the experience, professional authors, poets and musicians are invited to “open” each slam, setting the tone and showcasing various styles, while student musicians contribute a backup soundtrack for the performing student poets. Each slam gives both the artists and audience members an opportunity to appreciate the power of spoken word.

The Literary Magazine

Each year the Writers Workshop class produces Visions, a magazine comprised of student art, photography, poetry, prose and dramatic writing. Materials for the magazine are solicited by the student staff, and are then carefully selected collaboratively by the student editors. Layout design is achieved using PhotoShop, and the final result is an impressive collection of creative works, celebrating the collective imagination and talent of The Marin School’s student body.

The Authors Series

For the past five years, TMS students have hosted four renowned writers each year, sharing that literary experience as a school community, and offering participation to the broader Marin community.  Led by the English 4 Honors class, our students have worked with best-selling authors like Isabel Allende, Karen Fowler and Chitra Divakaruni.  Students work with staff and the authors on scheduling, then with parents and the school board on fundraising and other logistical aspects of event preparation.  The events themselves have included a college style all day symposium on an author’s work, public readings at The Book Passage in Corte Madera and intensive workshops in creative writing.  The TMS Authors Series makes literature a living, breathing, exciting activity for our students, staff and parents and the local community.

The TMS Film Festival

The TMS Film Festival showcases the work of students enrolled in the Film as Literature class, but is also open to other students who enjoy making movies. The students learn about digital filmmaking in preparation for the festival, including working with professional filmmakers who visit the school.  Last year’s TMS Film Festival featured a remake of a scene from the Oscar-winning movie, Sideways, which the students made with Joe Marinelli, an actor who was in that scene in the original movie.  Students have also worked with Niels Mueller (director/screenwriter: The Assassination of Richard Nixon; Tadpole) and Lester Cohen (art director: Juice; Cop).

Ecology

Bay Model/Mt. Tam Overview
Hawk Hill Raptor Observation (new photos)
Pt.Reyes/Earthquake Trail/Mt. Wittenberg Hike
Muir Woods
Ano Nuevo: elephant seals
Canoes in Sloughs (on the Bay)
Sausalito: settling plate monitoring project
Agate Beach Tide Pooling/Pt. Reyes Oyster farm: Oysters on the Half Shell, First Semester 2009
Muir Beach: sand crab monitoring

Biology

Muir Beach: sand crab monitoring (new photos)
In-house Birth Control/STD presentation w/outside speakers
UCSF Lab Tour

Zoology

“The Universe Within” exhibit
Tule Elk Preserve
Pt. Reyes Bird Observatory/Agate Beach tide pooling
S.F. Zoo (photos)
Lagunitas Creek: Coho salmon viewing
California Academy of Sciences
Ano Nuevo:  elephant seals
Drake’s Estero/Audobon Canyon Ranch
Safari West

Physics

The Highway Patrol
Lawrence Livermore Lab
San Francisco Science Museum
The Exploratorium San Francisco

Activities

School Science Fair: all classes

ACLU Youth Rights Conference

Located at UC Berkeley

Oakland Museum of California

California and the Vietnam War Exhibit along with lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Berkeley

Trip to Alcatraz Island

Study the Indian Occupation of 1969

Trip to the U.S.S. Hornet in Alameda

Part of a unit on World War II in the Pacific

Trip to the Presidio

View Pacific Coastal defense during World Wars I and II

Guest Speakers

Including Vietnam Vets, Antiwar Protesters, World War II Vets, Korean War Vets, Journalists and Native Americans

United States Court of Appeals in San Francisco

Field Trips common to both languages

  • Restaurants to sample the food from our target cultures
  • Movie theaters to experience the culture and the language first hand
  • Theater to see plays organized by educational companies
  • Local cultural neighborhoods to “go abroad”  locally (Mission District, French District)
  • Museums to experience the art from various countries’ artists
  • Book signings at local book stores
  • Events such as Bastille Day, Day of the Dead Celebration, Cinco de Mayo, sponsored by local communities

French Trips

Lycee La Pérouse: students spend a day in a French high school with French curriculum

Spanish Trips

Canal Alliance: students volunteer to work with community children

In-school events and celebrations

  • Mexican Independence Day (Breaking of the Piñata), Day of the Dead (assembly and luncheon)
  • Mardi Gras and French Impressionist Cabaret (French and Art students)

Pixar

This trip is a collaboration of the art, computer and English departments. The activities leading up to the trip include creating a flip book, writing a script, illustrating a storyboard, creating clay figures for claymation and putting this all together to create a film.

SF Museum of Modern Art

Inspired by the Chuck Close self-portrait show, the advance Drawing and Painting students  paint their own self-portraits using various painting techniques by contemporary artists. 

Legion of Honor

Based on the Fashion/Anti-Fashion show at the Legion, the Drawing and Painting class  combine clothing, stretched canvas and paint to create spectacular personal abstract images.

 

Asian Art Museum

Every year the Studio Art class visits the Asian to work with a master Chinese brush painter and learn the techniques in this non-western way of painting.  In addition, the day includes a docent-led tour of the museum and sketching in the galleries.

 

de Young Museum

With the opening this year of the beautiful new state-of-the-art facility, the Art History and studio classes have been able to enjoy art, architecture and natural landscape in one.  This includes the Egyptian Hatshepsut visiting exhibit, the permanent Andy Goldsworthy environmental sculpture and the copper-clad building housing the whole works.

 

di Rosa Preserve

This preserve in Napa displays art in a 100 year old winery-turned residence, new galleries, 200 acres of rolling meadows, lush gardens and even a 35 acre lake.  It is a culmination of four years of art education for the Art History and Advanced art students to see first-class contemporary local art in a glorious setting.

Workshops

This includes the Drawing and Painting students visiting the KALA Art Institute in Berkeley.  KALA is a printmaking studio and offered the students a day long workshop devoted to the basic techniques of printmaking. 

Figure drawing from the model

The studio art students will have the opportunity to draw from a live professional model. This type of drawing is a must for the serious art student’s portfolio.

TMS Annual Jazz and Art Show

At the end of every school year, the art, photography and film students show off their work at this annual show.  It is a gala event with refreshments, art and films produced in the last school year and a concert by TMS Jazz Band. 

Visiting artists

Prominent artists and photographers share their expertise with TMS students.  Among those are Sisse Brimberg, a National Geographic photographer; Larry Sultan, a photographer known for his community art; and Mark Darley, a widely published architectural photographer. 

Cross-curricular activities

Photography and Spanish departments host an evening field trip to SOMARTS to view Day of the Dead altars. Each year they create altars at the school with their respective classes.  Photo and history departments created on a “Photographer as Activist” project during which students toured the Sixth Street Photographers Studio, a nonprofit organization that offers photography classes and facilities to low income and homeless people. 

Art shows

Every years students participate in a variety of Marin County art shows including; “Celebrate the Arts”, the Artisan Gallery, the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce Gallery, Caledonia Street Fair in Sausalito and the Marin County Fair.

After school art activities

The Photography Club Saturday field trips include Angel Island, Alcatraz Island, Sausalito waterfront, Golden Gate Park, Chinatown and West Marin.  An after school “Portfolio Workshop” offers students the opportunity to develop their work and build a body of work for college admissions.