Farms for City Kids®
About Farms for City Kids®
In our thousand-acre classroom at Spring Brook Farm‚ reading‚ writing‚ math‚ social studies and environmental study skills are applied to hands-on farming tasks. Through group-structured tasks—such as learning to care for farm animals—students discover untapped character strengths‚ develop critical teamwork skills and strengthen core values such as hard work‚ leadership‚ respect‚ self-confidence and responsibility. Students are challenged to overcome fears‚ accomplish feats they never imagined and are empowered by our Farm staff to achieve success every day.
Participating teachers from cities across the country view the no-cost Farms For City Kids program as a vital part of their curriculum as it not only reinforces academics‚ it puts ideas into action and brings education to life. Typically between the ages of 8 and 12‚ our students arrive at a pivotal pre-adolescent juncture. Decision-making and reasoning skills learned at this time help to ensure proper maturity development into the teenage years and beyond. Hands-on learning is especially effective in reaching kids at this stage of life.
The Farms For City Kids program combines the three primary methods of sensory learning—auditory‚ visual and kinetic. While all three methods are used at the Farm‚ tactile learning—often limited in a traditional classroom environment—plays a heightened role.
In addition to our dairy cows, we have chickens, roosters, pigs, turkeys and even some humans–just for good measure. Our students also help grow many kinds of fruits and vegetables including corn, peas, tomatoes, pumpkins and potatoes. The greenhouse, raspberry and blueberry bushes, maple sugar bush and small apple orchard also keep the kids busy. All of these efforts play an integral role in helping us help ourselves.
Spring Brook Farm Cheese Company, LLC, designed for the kids with a glassed-in viewing area so the students can watch the cheese makers from two different levels, further enhances our mission by creating an important venue for students to study chemistry, microbiology, food preservation, economics and health. This new learning experience enables our workshops on nutrition and sustainability to take on a new level of meaning and importance as the students see all of their efforts transformed into a product that will be consumed by people they may never meet.
