School of the Woods offers classes in Early Childhood through High School
Early Childhood/Kindergarten (2 1/2 to 6 years)
Children in this multi-age group setting easily learn in this hands on individualized environment. Our credentialed Montessori teachers design each child's curriculum to foster optimal growth and development. These experiences are presented in accordance with each child's level of ability. The children learn order and organization, movement coordination, and fine and gross motor skills, gaining self-confidence and independence.
These experiences lay the groundwork for future learning throughout their lives. The holistic, hands-on activities include vocabulary development, sensorial awareness, math, phonemic based reading, handwriting, sciences, geography, history, art, and music. Every child receives personalized instruction and learning opportunities that promotes individual decision making, critical thinking, and cognitive growth.
Elementary (6 to 9 years; Grades 1-3)
This interactive learner-centered environment provides individualized instruction and whole group cooperative learning activities. Students widen their worldview through an expanding curriculum. Abundant hands on materials foster optimum development of reading, spelling and writing skills. Math operations emphasize the understanding of process as well as accuracy in computations. These acquired basic skills are then applied in interdisciplinary themes. In science, students research, classify, observe and conduct experiments. Work in cultural subjects includes the study of needs of people around the world and throughout history.
Elementary children at School of the Woods are assessed continuously through teacher observations. They advance through a system known as mastery learning. This means students advance through each curriculum and must demonstrate complete understanding of the concept to be learned before they proceed to the next level. Students explore art history and expression as well as music theory, history and expression in separate three-hour blocks each week.
Upper Elementary (9 to 12 years; Grades 4-6)
Students of the upper elementary level are transitioning from learning by hands-on-experiences to the abstract understanding of concepts. The students' expanding world and growing ability to work with interdisciplinary topics allows for new elements in the curriculum.
Music and art classes occur weekly with enough time to complete projects and research. The introduction of homework teaches social skills in monitoring work, meeting dead lines responsibly and using textbooks efficiently. Mastery learning assumes a new dimension in the upper elementary class with high accuracy required in math testing before students can progress.
Woods Middle School (12 to 14 years; Grades 7-8)
Seventh and eighth grade students are emerging into adolescence, a time of rapid personal growth and change. To guide our students through this critical period, School of the Woods has created a unique program, so successful that it is now a model for similar programs in other Montessori and public schools systems nationwide. Our adolescent program emphasizes and encourages individual personal responsibility and collaborative learning. It designates large blocks of time to allow in-depth individual work and small group seminars. To help develop personal responsibility, Middle School students prepare periodic progress reports for their parents and are required to plan and lead these parent-teacher-student conferences.
Service Learning activities and cross-age teaching also continue to build the collaborative skills of students at this level. All Middle School students take part in hands-on service learning and build real life skills by working off-campus as interns - one week with younger children and one working in local businesses. They also take part in student government committees, and present science and history lessons to fellow students. Every year, a student group travels to New York to participate in the Montessori Model United Nations along with students from all over the world.
Woods High School (14 to 18 years; Grades 9-12)
The Woods High School courses of study reflect an integration of the Texas requirements of essential elements, the newest research about the developmental needs of adolescents, the Montessori philosophy, current learning theory, and the predictions of the skills needed for a productive life in the twenty-first century. The curriculum and instruction are designed as a four-year program in which classes meet the rigorous criteria of honors distinction.
Unique to our Montessori secondary program, Self-Construction courses focus on cultivating the whole student to realize her/his full potential. Senior Thesis is the culmination of this course work. The goal of Senior Thesis is to afford students the opportunity to pursue a topic about which they are passionate. They complete lasting, meaningful work that applies interdisciplinary knowledge and original research. Students complete a final thesis paper and present their work to the High School community. Our students graduate prepared for academic success in college and with a vision for their personal future.
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS : School of the Woods, admits students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship programs, extra curricula activities or other school administered programs.
