Benefits to children who spend time on the farm:
Increases vitamin D levels | Improves health, eyesight, attention span, creativity, and social skills
Decreases hyperactivity and depression | Crucial component for development of brain and intellect | Strengthens the immune system | Human Animal Connection
Increases vitamin D levels | Improves health, eyesight, attention span, creativity, and social skills
Decreases hyperactivity and depression | Crucial component for development of brain and intellect | Strengthens the immune system | Human Animal Connection
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"Deep in the woods of Sagaponack, The Green School connects children with nature. The year-round preschool program is eco-focused, hands-on—and turning 10 this year.“We focus in what we call a hidden learning style, where children are having fun and they’re playing, but yet we are incorporating learning by nature, which is all around us,” said the school’s founder, Mari Linnman. “You can draw letters in the sandbox, or count the number of sticks on the ground, or you can open the door to the chicken coop and count the number of chickens running out. [Education] doesn’t have to be in a traditional classroom.”
The farm-friendly classroom started out of the growing demand at a summer camp that Ms. Linnman has run for more than 23 years, the Art Farm Hamptons, which has a sister camp in New York City. The day camp experience has swelled from a one-woman operation to more than 400 campers and 100 employees..."
Read more... http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/Sagaponack/554492/Green-School-In-Sagaponack-Celebrates-10th-Anniversary
The farm-friendly classroom started out of the growing demand at a summer camp that Ms. Linnman has run for more than 23 years, the Art Farm Hamptons, which has a sister camp in New York City. The day camp experience has swelled from a one-woman operation to more than 400 campers and 100 employees..."
Read more... http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/Sagaponack/554492/Green-School-In-Sagaponack-Celebrates-10th-Anniversary
Southampton Press
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Wanna Fete the Harvest Season?
Head East This Weekend October 22, 2010 | By Brian Halweil | Photographs by Lindsay Morris And, finally, for the kids, there’s this to consider. The Green School in Sagaponack–which gets its power from rooftop solar and whose 2 and 3 year old students spend their days making seasonally-appropriate apple muffins and pumpkin soup, and taking care of the resident farm animals—is offering extracurricular ed for those wee weekend warriors. In addition to riding lessons ($75 for a 30 minute lesson, $100 for 1 hour lesson; ages 3 years to adult) and a Saturday morning petting farm (9:30 a.m.-Noon, R.S.V.P. appreciated to 631.875.4890; $25 includes petting zoo and pony ride), families can adopt an animal and help feed and care for it as part of the Part Time Farmer offerings. Available animals include a pony, a horse, a donkey, pigs, bunnies, guinea pigs, hens and roosters. (Annual shares start at $35 and go up to $300. Learn more here or call 631.537.1634.) At Tots on the Farm, now in its second season at The Green School, pre-nursery and nursery aged children enter the classroom through barn doors, and eat snacks often supplemented from the school’s garden. The teachers and students compost the remains or feed them to the farm animals on site. The chickens provide eggs for baking. The school’s NYC sister is called The Art Farm School, is across the way from Eli Zabar’s Vinegar Factory. According to school founder Mari Linnman, it’s this sort of environment–“an idyllic setting filled with farm animals, gardens, and ponds”–that helps young children adjust to the separation anxiety that’s sometimes part of school. She credits the model partly to her own childhood on a dairy farm. “We have a clear message of exposing children to all that nature has to offer and how to preserve it for all those who inhabit great and small,” she says, noting that care for farm animals teaches, among other things, responsibility, compassion and patience. |