Shooting Star School is a joyful, music-based learning experience where children build confidence, courage, and self-expression through singing, movement, story, and imaginative play.
Inspired by the original musical JOY & The Shooting Stars, the program transforms a beloved story-world into an ongoing social-emotional learning model for schools and community settings.
Shooting Star School is founded on a few simple, powerful principles:
Joyful Learning
Play, music, and imagination create openness, curiosity, and willingness to try.
Safety & Encouragement
Children grow when they feel safe, supported, and encouraged to take risks.
Practice & Persistence
Skills develop over time through practice, patience, and steady effort.
Choice & Voice
Children are invited to make choices about how they participate and express themselves.
Shared Experience
Group learning is balanced with opportunities for individual reflection and support.
“Shooting Star School gave my daughter the most wonderful opportunity to SHINE! She made friends, she fell in love with singing songs that express her inner world, and I visibly watched her develop into a more mature young woman. It’s what every parent hopes for their children. ”
Program Overview
Shooting Star School is designed primarily as a small-group, reflective program, where children learn through shared, embodied experiences rather than traditional instruction alone. Sessions blend music, movement, story, and guided reflection to support social-emotional learning in a welcoming, participatory environment.
Offered during the school day, after school, or in community and arts-based settings, the program is adaptable in length and structure and can be tailored across ages, group sizes, and learning environments with skilled facilitation.
Shooting Star School is grounded in social-emotional learning (SEL), helping children learn simple, powerful tools that support resilience, emotional balance, and a positive mindset.
Through music, movement, story, and reflection, children practice core SEL competencies, including:
self-awareness
emotional regulation
empathy and connection
responsible decision-making
confidence and self-expression
Shooting Star School engages children in embodied, shared experiences that allow SEL learning to be felt, practiced, and integrated over time.
The curriculum aligns with widely recognized SEL frameworks while remaining flexible and developmentally responsive to the needs of each group.
“My daughter feels things very deeply and struggles with focus and impulse control, even though she’s wise and reflective. Through Shooting Star School, she became more aware of her speech, her reactions, and how she shows up with others. She was deeply engaged and felt truly connected to the group. The closeness, safety, and sense of belonging meant everything to her — it met her exactly as she is and helped her grow.”
What Sessions Look Like
Each Shooting Star School session follows a gentle, intentional structure and includes:
an opening circle to establish connection and focus
guided songs and movement aligned with the curriculum theme
story moments drawn from the JOY & The Shooting Stars universe
“Star Team Games” to strengthen teamwork and re-center the group
reflection and creative response, including discussion, drawing, journaling, or movement
a grounded closing to support transition back to the day
Sessions balance energy and stillness, helping children feel both engaged and supported.
“Our daughter loved every minute of Shooting Star School. She blossomed with the comraderie, all the creative activities, and feeling totally safe to speak her mind and be herself.”
The Curriculum Framework
At the heart of Shooting Star School is an original, arts-based curriculum organized around five core themes, known as the “5 Guiding Lights to SHINE!” Each Guiding Light represents a set of skills and understandings that children explore through songs, movement, story, and group reflection. These themes are revisited over time, allowing learning to deepen through repeated, creative practice.
Smart Body Signals
Children learn to listen to their bodies and recognize feelings as helpful signals.
HOME
Children build a sense of inner safety, love, and connection to their own hearts.
Be More Tree
Children practice calm, steadiness, and resilience through breath, grounding, and imagination.
Wise Owl Wisdom
Children learn to recognize and listen to their calm, loving inner voice.
Powerful Actions
Children practice taking small, meaningful steps toward goals with courage and self-belief.
She says: I Can Do It!
The Inner Teachers: Gremlin & Wise Owl
Shooting Star School introduces social-emotional learning through two guiding characters children quickly understand: Gremlin and Wise Owl.
Gremlin represents the voice of fear, worry, and self-doubt that all children experience. Wise Owl represents the calm, caring, and thoughtful inner voice that helps children pause, reflect, and make choices with intention.
Through songs, scenes, movement, and guided discussion from JOY & The Shooting Stars, children learn to recognize these inner experiences and practice responding with awareness rather than reactivity. This shared language gives children a concrete, nonjudgmental way to talk about feelings, challenges, and choices — both during sessions and in everyday life.
Over time, children build a Wise Owl Toolkit — foundational, lifelong skills that nurture confidence, resilience, friendship, and a deep sense of belonging.
Designed for Growing Learners
Shooting Star School currently serves elementary–aged children, grades 3-5.
Early pilots have shown that the program is best suited for children who are ready to participate in shared, reflective group experiences with adult guidance and support.
Shooting Star School is designed to grow alongside young people. A high school mentor program is launching this spring, inviting older students to serve as Shooting Star Guides, with future expansion planned for middle school. With appropriate adaptations and skilled facilitation, the program can also serve lower elementary–aged children.
No prior musical or performance experience is required.
The Musical
The core curriculum for Shooting Star School has been built around JOY & The Shooting Stars, an original educational musical with memorable characters, songs and scenes that captivate and support learning.
Shooting Star School is designed as a participatory learning program, giving children ongoing opportunities to practice and embody the ideas explored in the story.
In a culminating showcase, students share elements of what they’ve learned from the musical — not as a polished performance, but as an opportunity to express growth, confidence, and connection.
“Shooting Star School was instrumental in growing my daughter’s confidence. She initially joined because some of her friends were participating. After the first few sessions, her insecurities and fear of singing in front of people were revealed. The Shooting Stars team helped turn that around, and I watched her step into her power over a very short time. By the final performance she was confident and watching her sing her solo was incredible! Thank you so much for providing this opportunity!”
A Wise Owl Investment
Thank YOU-HOO-OOO!!!
Shooting Star School is made possible through the generosity of donors, partners, and community supporters who believe in the power of creative, social-emotional learning.
Your support helps bring JOY & The Shooting Stars and Shooting Star School to children in more schools and communities, expand access through scholarships, and train the next generation of Shooting Star Guides.
There are many ways to support this work — through donations, partnerships, or helping bring the program to your school or community.
“Shooting Star school was such a wonderful experience. My daughter stepped into the role of Wise Owl and sang her very first song on stage —something she’d only dreamed about. She gained confidence, a warm community, and a strong belief that she can do anything. It was truly transformative for her and for all of us who love her.”
We are deeply grateful to LEAF and the Lyons Community Foundation for their early belief in this work and their investments in its beginning.
Their support made the launch of the first Shooting Star School possible and helped bring JOY & The Shooting Stars to the stage — transforming a vision into a real, living experience for children and families in the community.
The Stars behind Shooting Star School
Molly Williams is the creator of JOY & The Shooting Stars and the founder of Shooting Star School. As a musician, performer, writer, and educator, she leads the vision, design, and development of the Shooting Star School model, weaving music, story, and social-emotional learning into transformative experiences for children and communities. Her experience with educational nonprofits and public/private partnerships informs the program’s early structure and implementation approach. Read her story.
Founder & Creator
Esther Van Zyl played an important role in the early development and launch of Shooting Star School, supporting its translation into a school-based learning environment. She contributed to the program’s early structure, pilot implementation, and the development of the Star Team Games, drawing on her background in theater games and improvisation. She also co-directed the second stage production of JOY & The Shooting Stars, supporting its growth in a live performance setting.
Visit her website.
Founding Program Collaborator
Want to bring the musical world of JOY & The Shooting Stars to your community?
Fill out the form below out and we will be in touch shortly!