Wisdom of The Willows Blog

Founded in 1994, The Willows interscholastic athletic program is strong and thriving. Our goal is to promote cooperation, team spirit, fun, and good sportsmanship. Here are seven things that might surprise you about the program

Tweet! Tweet! Dialing Up!

If you visit our campus, you may see an unusual sight: students and staff using a pay phone. No change is required to use this payphone! It’s a Bird Calls Phone! Installed on the outside of our Willows 3 Building, the phone is used by students throughout the day. Simply pick up the handset and push a dial-pad number and you hear various bird calls. This ornithological landscape also offers brief information about each bird such as habitat and description.

For years, The Willows has proudly sent students, faculty, alumni, parents, administrators, and trustees to the inspiring Pollyanna conference at Harvard-Westlake. These gathering have become an integral part of our community’s ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

For those that have never attended, you might be wondering – what exactly is Pollyanna, and why does it matter?

How do you provide an education that prepares students not just for school, but for life? By providing meaningful experiences. From the moment students step into our classrooms in Developmental Kindergarten to the day they graduate in 8th Grade, they embark on an engaging educational journey that shapes their character, nurtures their creativity, and builds their skills for life beyond school.

Each grade at The Willows offers unique opportunities that define a student’s journey and contribute to who they become as learners and citizens. These signature experiences are deeply rooted in our mission to cultivate curiosity, collaboration, and confidence in every child.

Here are 10 experiences—one for each grade—that Willows student will experience before graduation.

The Willows is committed to a balanced yet demanding progressive curriculum rooted in experiential learning and social values. Our Lower School program fosters a rich, supportive environment that allows children to grow cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically. Here are seven unique aspects of The Willows’ Lower School program. 

Multicultural programming is an essential component of a well-rounded education at The Willows. By exposing students of all ages to diverse cultures, traditions, and perspectives, we cultivate a community of open-minded, empathetic, and globally aware individuals. Each school year, we hold a variety of school-wide and grade-specific programs dedicated to sharing the cultural significance and history of a myriad of cultures.

My name is Brian Tousey; I am the Media Literacy Coordinator at The Willows. Since 1997, I’ve also worked as a classroom teacher, primarily in the Middle School.  From the moment I began teaching, I immediately incorporated media into my lessons. It felt like a natural extension of the educational training I received at the University of Illinois.

The Willows school-wide theme for the 2024/2025 school year is Hope. Learn how Hope has moved our school forward for the last 30 years.

The beginning of a new school year means resuming many familiar habits and routines. However, adjusting to a new grade and teacher can be both exciting and challenging, even if your student has a group of familiar friends in their class. Here’s some advice for students to help them navigate this transition smoothly.

Read about the benefits of having book buddies and how it helps develop stronger literacy and social-emotional skills for our students.

A group of 25 Willows 7th and 8th Graders took a 6-day service learning trip to Puerto Rico, learning about its culture, geography, and history, all while performing multiple acts of service to benefit its communities and environment.

At The Willows, we emphasize experiential and thematic instruction, critical thinking & problem solving, and the development of social emotional skills. 

Forming strong and concise arguments is a fundamental skill that grows increasingly vital as students progress through their academic journey. At The Willows, we understand the significance of this skill and mindfully integrate its development into our curriculum as early as 3rd grade. By the time students reach Middle School, they have the opportunity to delve deeper into argumentation by joining our debate team.

As lower school art teachers at The Willows, Kristy Acero & Christian Isbell are no strangers to big ideas. It’s common for them to incorporate curricular lessons into ideas for thoughtful and detailed student art projects, transforming them into artistic prompts for a wide variety of classes. With these prompts. students often explore visual meaning through their own individual perspectives. However, more recently, Kristy & Christian shared an idea to celebrate Lunar New Year, not as individuals, but as a collective Willows community.

For a single week each school year, The Willows pauses the day-to-day curriculum and delves into Intersession, an in-depth, cross-disciplinary study of a single theme conducted in multi-age groups. This year’s projects will examine the 2023-2024 school-wide theme, Strength. Intersession activities always promote collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills for every age group.

Every year for Family Education Night at The Willows, we invite all students and their families onto our campus to experience firsthand experiential learning through hands-on activity. The theme this year is Mathematics. Throughout all grades, families will be able to go to their child’s classroom and work together on engaging math activities

At the onset of each new school year, Willows 6th Graders embark on a multi-month unit focused on forensic sciences and their intersection with the U. S. judicial system. Simulations of forensic activities help demonstrate these essential processes. Starting with a mock crime scene in the science lab,

In a past blog discussing our school-wide theme Strength, we stated that we “encourage our community to resolve to make the difficult decisions when there are quicker and easier alternatives available.” This notion is demonstrated in the collective work done through our composting program, led by Willows Middle School teacher Liz Stocksdale.

Our commitment to SEL & the RULER approach has grown steadily, and recently, four teachers and Head of School, Lisa Rosenstein, had the opportunity to share our integration of the RULER approach with Celsiusskolan, a school in Edsbyn, Sweden!

When faced with the decision of where to send your child to school, there are a wide variety of factors to consider. Such an important choice deserves careful consideration to ensure that your child receives the best opportunities for success. From optimal teacher-to-student ratios to dedicated and innovative teachers...

Welcome Back Willows! We hope that you had an enjoyable summer full of rest and relaxation and are ready for the start of school next week! Before you know it, we’ll be fully immersed in academics, athletics, and the arts, so take a moment now to establish a plan for the upcoming year.

The school-wide theme for the 2023/24 year is Strength. Throughout the school year, we will consider Strength in curriculum and community, investigating how each of us can adopt healthy mental, emotional, and physical ideas of strength.

As any Willows teacher will tell you, they assume numerous roles to successfully lead their students through an entire school day, inspiring and...

The Willows curriculum, based in part on the principles of experiential learning, offers engaging, hands-on approaches to bring learning to life for...

Few skills, if any, are more fundamental to early childhood education than reading. The American Academy of Pediatrics affirms this sharing that “reading regularly...

Preparing students for the future remains the principal purpose of a child’s school career, even as curricula and educational practices evolve. Teachers and...

Experience the benefits of looping in education at The Willows Community School, where lasting bonds and continuous growth strengthens connections between students and teachers.

In what ways do you observe or feel Impact?

You might think of the impact you have had on someone, whether that be family, a friend, or someone...

With the new school year drawing closer, the natural approach for many is to anticipate what set of changes and challenges may arise in the near...

As the school year winds down, it’s important we all take time to reflect on the year. So many of us get consumed in the daily grind that we often forget to intentionally...

For many of us, we use these two words interchangeably. However, there’s a major difference between the two. What’s the difference...

For teachers, one of the best tools in solidifying concepts and tying together classroom learning is through real-world experiences such as field trips. Whether it be a local trip...

Conversations are incredibly important. It’s a pivotal component in communicating our thoughts, opinions, and emotions to one another. It’s our way of communicating...

This past fall in art class, students learned about cranes and their cultural significance around the world. In Japan, origami cranes are symbols of hope and peace. An old Japanese folktale...

What does a Willows’ music teacher, one hundred Willows students, and four Willows’ alums have in common? A duck astronaut.

This piece is about collaboration...

As our world becomes more digital and automated, the skills we teach our students need to be tailored to the future careers when our students graduate into the work force. Many of those positions...

Stress is a part of life and always will be. There’s no way to avoid it. Our minds are constantly processing, sometimes at speeds faster than we’d like. Often our thoughts compete with one...

It’s Friday after lunch and there’s a lot of buzz and shuffling happening in the middle school hallways. Students are swapping out their lunch boxes for the supplies...

With the last 18 months being extremely difficult for many families and it’s very easy for parents to think about the educational and developmental losses...

At The Willows, we believe each child brings our community an extraordinary gift: a curious mind, ready to explore, and eager to learn. We believe that in order to allow our children to grow into lifelong...

Technology has become so prevalent in our society that everywhere you look; you’re surrounded by it. Whether it’s in our homes, our cars, our pockets, or in our schools, you can’t avoid it. While there can be many drawbacks...

This story begins with a problem. The problem? A lack of research on the mental health of people working in isolated places. When there’s a problem, The Willows...

We want our students to dream big and to find ways to make an impact on our community. For one 7^th grader, she did exactly that. Our very own Willow’s student, Eden Martin, wrote and self-published...

One of the biggest shifts in education is the transition from elementary school to middle school. So much is different: the responsibility and independence...

As a parent, you know if you give too much feedback, your kids will get annoyed. If you give too little, you feel like you aren’t helping enough. If you give poor feedback...

Parents all want what’s best for their child but what do you do when your child is faced with something that is challenging to them? How do you react when your child...

With three parent-teacher conferences per year, it’s important to make the most of this valuable time with your teachers. Being prepared and having an informative meeting can...

You know that feeling when you’re looking for your keys and then you find them under a stack of papers, right where you had been searching for them all along? You’re so relieved. You knew...

If you have a picky eater, you know how difficult and stressful every meal can be. While it’s easier to let your child eat whatever and avoid the struggle, it’s not a long-term healthy solution. The good thing...

Parents want the best for their children and that means providing them with the tools and skills needed to live a productive, successful, and meaningful life. One trait that parents want for their kids is leadership. Why is it that so many parents...

A few weeks ago-as a nation, we embarked on a historic moment. Our nation swore in Joe Biden as President and the first woman and person of South Asian and African American...

S.T.E.M., the term coined to abbreviate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, has become a staple in early education, with curricula evolving to recognize...