Opening Minds through the Arts - OMA
Opening Minds through the Arts
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Inspired by exciting, ongoing research into connections between brain development and music, Tucson's Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) is a leader in a national movement to integrate arts education with core curriculum.
OMA uses instrumental music, opera, dance, theater and visual arts to help teach reading, writing, math and science to children in kindergarten through 8th grade. Each fully implemented OMA school has an Arts Integration Specialist and a team of seven artists who work alongside classroom teachers, adapting each lesson to support teaching of core skills and knowledge. In addition, children learn to play the recorder, violin, a wind instrument and keyboard. In Tucson, OMA employs more than 40 artists from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Arizona Opera Company, University of Arizona Schools of Music and Dance and other arts organizations to teach 30-minute, twice-weekly classes for 32 of the 36 weeks of the school year that support core-curriculum goals. In the 2010-2011 school year, the OMA Program is operating in 14 schools. See our complete list of OMA schools.
OMA Opera and Word Choice
OMA Instrumental Trio
OMA Math with Wendy Joy
OMA brings the arts to Tucson Unified School District classrooms as a means of
- teaching core curriculum
- fostering cognitive development
- improving test scores
- encouraging self-expression
- igniting love and understanding of the arts
- narrowing the gap between less-privileged and more privileged students
- building community
- supporting the arts
Homegrown and nationally recognized, OMA works!
Contact OMA