Most of us can picture a traditional classroom easily enough: rows of desks, a bell schedule, one teacher at the front of a single grade. A day at WONDERfield is shaped differently.
We are a private, non-profit school in Kingsville, Ontario, teaching Kindergarten through Grade 8. Children learn in multi-age forms of 4 to 15 students, and we follow the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason.
A living education
Mason’s idea was that children are born persons. They arrive already able to handle real ideas, so they should be given real things to think about rather than thinned-out summaries.
In practice that means living books, written by authors who cared about their subject, instead of textbooks that flatten it. It means a generous curriculum offered to every child: history, science, literature, art and music, geography, mathematics, languages and Bible.
We say our students grow in mind, body, heart and soul. That is the whole point of the place.
How a day is shaped
Every morning starts together. Students and teachers gather in one room to sing hymns, French songs and folk songs, then sit with a poem or a piece of music and talk about what they noticed.
Lessons are short, roughly 20 to 30 minutes, and there are many of them. A child can give real concentration to a subject for 20 minutes. Ask for an hour and the effort thins out.
After a lesson, children narrate. They tell back what they have just learned in their own words, out loud or in writing, sometimes as a drawing. You cannot narrate what you did not attend to, so the habit teaches children to listen closely the first time.
Outside, every day
Mason wrote that children should never be within doors when they can rightly be without. We take that literally.
Part of every day happens outside: journalling under a tree, sketching near a pond, games the children organize themselves. Nature study takes us across Kingsville and Essex County, to local parks, conservation areas, the Lake Erie shoreline and community gardens.
Made by hand
Handicrafts have a fixed place in the week. Students work in the woodshop, with fabric, and in the kitchen. They model clay, build shelters from sticks, paint from nature, and cook and bake.
Making one real thing well, start to finish, teaches a patience that carries into every other subject.
Thursdays out
Every Thursday afternoon the schoolhouse empties for a WONDERquest: a farm, a museum, a conservation area, a historic site. What students read about on other days, they meet in person.
Older students spend Fridays on curated independent study away from the schoolhouse, working through their own projects with less supervision. By the time high school asks them to manage their own learning, the habit is already theirs.
Faith here
We are a Christian school, and faith runs through the ordinary parts of the day rather than sitting in a slot on the timetable. Hymns get sung at Morning Gathering. Bible is part of the curriculum. Stewardship comes up naturally because students spend so much time in creation.
Many of our families attend a church and many do not. You do not need to be a churchgoing family for your child to belong here.
Part of Kingsville, Ontario
Students take on service through the year: local clean-ups, handmade cards and gifts for shut-ins, visits to senior homes, and a Valentine’s blitz for the neighbours around the schoolhouse.
WONDERfield is an affiliate member of the Edvance Christian Schools Association and a founding member of the prov.en.der collective. Our policies are aligned with local and provincial regulations.
The practical details
- Kindergarten through Grade 8
- Multi-age forms of 4 to 15 students
- Younger students: 9:00am to 3:00pm, Monday to Thursday
- Older students start at 8:30am, with independent study on Fridays
- 111 Queen Street, Kingsville, Ontario N9Y 2A1
Come and see
Reading about a school only gets you so far. The clearest way to know whether WONDERfield suits your child is to stand in the room while it is happening.
Book a tour, or email schoolhouse@wonderfield.org.
