"a limitless field for scientific and historic studies"

“Work on the land is an introduction both to nature and to civilization and gives a limitless field for scientific and historic studies.” -Dr. Maria Montessori , Italian Physician and Educator (first published in 1948)

Dr. Montessori believed that we could achieve a better and more peaceful society by improving the education of young people.

The farm provides the basis for the curriculum at the Farm School, lending itself to project-based, experiential, learning.

Food, Inc. Makes an Impression

Farm School students, faculty, and parents attended a showing of the film Food, Inc. in Warrenton, VA with a follow-up Question and Answer session with Joel Salatin. The film made quite an impression.

At breakfast and lunch the next day, there was a lot of talk about food choices and analysis of where the ingredients for our meals were grown.

While the movie painted some pretty dire problems in the US food system, the students noted that they were proud to be a part of the solution - raising our own pigs for pork, chickens for eggs, and garden for fresh and healthy vegetables and herbs using sustainable farming practices.

In A Word: Braggart

Each Wednesday afternoon, the Farm School students are given a word as they leave school. They go home and write a creative composition using that word. Thursday morning at tea / snack time, they read their composition to the group. The exercise has very few boundaries. It might be poetry, prose, a story, a fable, a diaglogue, etc. The given word may be a common word, such as "fire," or it may be a new vocabulary word requiring research before use. Often the words are an extension of something happening in the school community. Each week we will share one example of the "In a Word" series.

To choose the word this week, we opened the dictionary and one of the students closed her eyes and pointed. The dictionary brought us this word: Braggart. Here is one example of how it was used in a composition.

BRAGGART

I lay down in cool grass facing syward,
where the birds and clouds took turns chasing one another in endless blue.
The smell of flowers filled the air.
The trees, tall and mighty, seemed like braggarts,
dancing with color when a breeze blew.
It was the most beautiful day I had ever...

"Erika, keep paddling!"

-Erika, 8th year student

Saving the Basil from the Frost

We harvested the rest of the basil on Friday and are proccesing it into pesto to be frozen for the winter. It will be wonderful to have something to eat from the garden when there is snow on the ground outside!

The basil crop did very well this year. It germinated better, grew better, and has continued to grow longer into the Fall than we expected. This explains the huge piles here in our final harvest. The de-stemming was a whole community effort.

Looking at Algebra Geometrically

The Farm School teaches Algebra using manipulative materials that represent the dimensions X and Y. Rather than memorizing abstract equations without any reference, the materials help the students to develop a concrete image of what the equations mean.

This is a natural extension from the Montessori

Elementary materials that lay the groundwork for advanced algebra and geometry. Here the students are using the Algebra materials both individually and in collaborative groups.

Grapes make great community service

Grape vineyards and wineries are integral parts of the landscape and culture of the Blue Ridge.

Farm School students learned about this aspect of our local agriculture up close this week when they picked Chambourcin grapes at Narmada Vineyards in Amissville.

The group picked over 3 tons of grapes!

Many thanks to Pandit Patil and Rob Cox for the opportunity.

No school today? No way!

Friday was technically a holiday. Students and teachers did not have to go to school. So what did we do? We went to school anyway! Students, younger siblings, teachers, and parents gathered at the Farm School to do community work.

In the morning, we built greenhouses to cover the raised beds, worked on the portable chicken house ("chicken tractor"), dug the hole and began to build the walls for the primitive pit fire (in which we will fire our clay pots), unloaded hay, and reorganized the Farmer's Market materials. In the afternoon, we ate lunch and played soccer.

It was a wonderful day. I was touched by the willingness of so many in the school community to volunteer their time and talents when they could have been sleeping in. The students have such ownership of the Farm School that they love to be there working together to get things done. It is a joy to work with these young people.

-Susan, Farm School Director