Middle School

Two trips each year provide a purposeful engagement in deep community living with a residential feel. An orientation trip begins each year to provide an opportunity for students to leave their home communities to bond as a new community in the mountains of West Virginia for four days and three nights. This trip uses numerous activities that encourage social connections and reliance on one another as a community, while also acting as an introduction to Science Occupations and Humanities projects through the students’ research and preparation that precede the trip.

An additional trip each year occurs in the Spring—this time to a major city. In the school’s two-year cycle, the community will venture out to Washington D.C. one year, and New York City the next. Academically, the visits are an extension of their studies in the Humanities, while socially, they provide the context for further recognition and exploration of the human interdependence of the community. These trips are key opportunities for students to experience the careful balance between independence and responsibility in social life, as they plan (and help execute) many of the details of the trips, needing to be considerate of the needs of themselves, their school community, and the larger communities of the cities they visit. Moving forward, consideration should be given to extending the length of these trips to an entire week, which would increase the possibilities for the experiences that residential life would otherwise offer.

In keeping with Montessori’s vision for the adolescent, the managing of a small business, or “microeconomy,” lays the groundwork for the adolescent’s development of greater social independence as he or she progresses toward maturity. Through economic activity, students gain valuable decision-making skills as they produce goods for sales, budget and record their own financial transactions, and learn the value of cooperative teamwork—all while nurturing a creative and entrepreneurial spirit.

As an integral piece of adolescent curriculum, the microeconomy honors the fact that so many skills beneficial for success in adulthood can only be learned through experience, not in textbooks or behind classroom desks.

Personal Expressions are offered every Wednesday throughout the academic year. Students have a choice between various physical expressions that are offered in the mornings, and a choice of creative expressions in the afternoon. Throughout a year, students can explore a vast array of activities, which have included: Yoga, trail running, basketball, horseback riding, physical comedy, poetry, painting, mask-making, printmaking, culinary arts, and graphic design.

In addition, Wednesdays and Fridays offer students a choice between participating in an orchestral ensemble or in more independent studies related to art and music.

Creative projects are also frequently integrated into Science Occupations and Humanities projects so that students have avenues through which to express their ideas and feelings about what they are learning of the natural world and of human society. Opportunities for the constructive power of self-expression are offered almost daily to the adolescent community of Hudson Montessori Middle School.

Students in the Middle School read about one novel a month and then discuss them using a seminar approach. They usually complete character lists, chapter summaries, or interpretive questions. Some novels are chosen due to the way they support content in Humanities or Science, and some novels are chosen based on the interest level of the students or thematic writing opportunities.

Recent novels read include:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
October Sky by Homer Hickam
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Watership Down by Richard Adams
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Ashes of Roses by MJ Auch
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
Selected works by Edgar Allan Poe
Excerpts from Gilgamesh and Beowulf

Plus poetry, abridged works by William Shakespeare, and additional readings (articles, short stories, opinion pieces) for Humanities and Science.

Students at Hudson Montessori School take the Terra Nova test. For testing purposes, we give grade level tests starting in 3rd grade and continuing through 8th grade. The Terra Nova is a comprehensive test that is administered at public and private schools. Historically, our average 8th grade student scores at and above the 90th percentile and above on reading, language and mathematics.

Below is a chart which presents the median 8th grade score for the Class of 2017 on the Terra Nova versus national median score.

8th Grade Median 2017 Performance Chart