Farm Curriculum by Grade

From preschool farm walks to senior sustainable agriculture projects, Summerfield students learn to care for the land through work that grows with them.

Our animals live truly exceptional lives. The farm is home to 3 cows, 12 sheep, 4 goats, 60 chickens, 5 ducks, and 3 lionhead bunnies. These animals are an essential part of our holistic, closed-loop farming system, working in harmony with the vegetable garden to produce nutrient-rich compost. Students from Kindergarten through Grade 12 benefit deeply from their connection with the animals. They love them, learn from them, and help care for them through Farm Chores which is woven into their daily curriculum.

Flock and herd management is an essential aspect of farming here at Summerfield and is done thoughtfully and compassionately, honoring the natural cycles of birth through to harvest. Offspring from our sheep, cows, and chickens are locally processed & packaged and made available at our Farm Stand, offering community members a profound understanding of and appreciation for how and where their food was raised. There’s nothing quite like enjoying a meal when you know exactly where the food was grown so we incorporate our vegetables, fruit, berries, and eggs into our daily school lunch program to provide our students healthy and sustainably grown nourishment, and to bring full-circle the students’ learnings from working on the farm.

One of the farm's belted cows, tagged and grazing in the orchard pasture.

Garden & Farm curriculum

Summerfield’s Farm produces a seasonal bounty of fruits, vegetables and flowers, and is a core part of the curriculum for classes from Preschool through Grade 12. We are the only school in the state that integrates a working Demeter Certified Biodynamic® farm into our curriculum; protected by a land trust, the Farm is a foundational part of our campus and our ethic.

At the Farm, children have the opportunity to learn many basic skills that are rapidly becoming lost in today’s industrialized society. By tending soil, turning the compost, planting perennial gardens, harvesting vegetables for soup, caring for farm animals, and pruning and grafting, each child gains a deeper awareness of the natural world.

The school is deeply committed to preserving and maintaining the Farm and the open space. That commitment to the land was affirmed in 1982 with a legally binding Land Trust requiring the school to protect and nurture the land the wildlife refuge in perpetuity.

Download the Farm Curriculum by Grade (PDF) (opens in a new tab).

Rosebud Preschool

Farm walk with foraging; frequent stops to wonder at plant, insect, and animal activity; cow, sheep and goat visits with vegetable treats; chicken feeding and egg gathering; bunny brushing and duck feeding; walnut tree climbing; farm stand visits. 2 hours each week on the farm.

Kindergarten

Seasonal rhythms, cider pressing, potato gathering, pumpkin harvesting, animal feeding and visits, egg gathering, snacks, building a fire to cook things on, walking in the corn rows.

Lower School (Grades 1–8)

Grade 1: First Grade garden, thistle digging in the pastures, corn shelling, apple pressing and drying, leaf raking.
Grade 2: Garden work, planting seeds, digging and weeding, social skills in the garden, sawing wood, harvesting beets.
Grade 3: Harvesting onions, potatoes, popcorn, field corn, winter squash and pumpkins, sowing a cover crop, birdhouse building, tree dressing, planting corn, onion, winter squash and pumpkins, sheep shearing.
Grade 4: Animal care, cleaning the duck pond and rabbit cages, gathering cowpies from the pasture and manure from the barns and chicken house, plus pruning and mulching the roses.
Grade 5: Broom-making, animal care, and sketching plants for main lesson Botany block.
Grade 6: Broom corn harvest, maintaining compost bins, tool identification and maintenance, double-digging in student gardens, caning raspberries, seed planting, and potting.
Grade 7: Potato sorting, building toolboxes for a carpentry project.
Grade 8: Harvesting, cooking, nutrition study, basket-weaving; using natural materials gathered on site.

High School (Grades 9–12)

Grade 9: Permaculture gardening, Herbal studies; research and practical application of the use of culinary and medicinal herbs.
Grade 10: Permaculture gardening, grafting of Fruit Trees.
Grade 11: Plant cultivation and propagation, greenhouse work.
Grade 12: Sustainable agriculture projects; individually chosen projects that serve the community.

Electives (High School)

Sustainable Agriculture; farming, harvesting, cooking and preserving.