Parent Portal
Many schools teach facts. Willow teaches understanding.
Explore academic innovations offered only at Willow! Every day, students learn by doing. They are encouraged to take risks, learn from their mistakes, and expand their intellectual capacity. Skills learned in the Lower School, such as inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving, are reinforced, strengthened, and applied to more complex and challenging research projects in Middle School.
Systems
Thinking
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Universities and Fortune 500 companies use Systems Thinking, yet this discipline, which helps students understand and navigate a complex world, isn’t widely taught or used in schools. Willow students are engaged with Systems Thinking in elementary and middle school through interdisciplinary studies and projects. This way of thinking prepares them to be good problem solvers and effective citizens who know how to create positive change in the world. Here’s how Willow students practice Systems Thinking in our classrooms:
- When Grade 5 students study the Agricultural Revolution, they are tasked with formulating a sustainable innovation that would lessen the revolution’s impact on the environment.
- Grade 6 students create Systems Thinking maps during their in-depth study of the American Dust Bowl. The project deepens their understanding of the interdependent relationships among ecosystems during this period of history.
- Grade 8 students apply Systems Thinking to their analysis and understanding of slavery in Colonial America using the “Iceberg Model.”
Student-led
Genius Hour
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Recess
2X a Day
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If you want your child to work as productively as possible in school, then recess twice a day makes perfect sense. Rain or shine, Willow students go outside to play, explore, and learn to get along with one another.
Lower School students enjoy recess after morning snack break and after lunch. They use our 34 acre wooded campus to invent games, build elaborate structures from natural materials, and build essential social skills like collaboration and compromise. Middle School students have a morning break and one scheduled recess. Three days a week, students have Academic Focus, a 40-minute free period they can devote to studying, homework, group projects, or meeting with teachers.
3 World
Languages
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Handcrafts &
Architecture
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Willow students are engaged with some of the oldest art forms on earth, vital to their intellectual and physical development. Handcrafts are taught from Kindergarten to Grade 4. Weaving and knitting, for instance, mirror traditional methods of storytelling, which supports literacy and language arts. The tactile nature of the Handcrafts program also develops fine motor skills, such as manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination.
Architecture begins in Grade 5. Students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills through the process of design. Handcrafts & Architecture, in conjunction with core academic subjects, foster creativity, self-discovery, and higher order thinking skills.
Grade 8 Internships
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Each spring, Grade 8 students intern with a business, non-profit, government institution, or other organization for one week. In recent years, internships have included law firms, animal shelters, county colleges, boutiques, corporations, doctors’ offices, and media companies.
The unique program provides a venue for students to put knowledge and skills to practical use, explore a potential career, and to demonstrate a tangible connection between their internship and Willow Virtues. Following the internship, students make a formal presentation of the experience to the Willow community at Morning Gathering.
Want to see our academic innovations in action? Visit Willow!
Request our ebook on Systems Thinking. We will email it to you immediately.
Director of Admissions Lisa VanderVeen is here to help! Contact her at (908) 470-9500, ext. 1100 or via email