Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs: Fourth Grade Biodynamic Farm Trip

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Students in the fourth grade at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs recently returned from a week-long farm stay at Hawthorne Valley in Ghent.

Students learned about biodynamic farming, experienced caring for animals and helped prepare farm-to-table meals. Feeding animals and milking cows, making soups, sourdough bread, yogurt, and more from farm-raised and local ingredients, hiking and arts such as wool felting made this an engaging and transformative experience for the fourth-grade class. 

Students gained a greater understanding of where their food comes from, the effort that goes into every meal we consume, and the incredible beings that make our food possible from bees to cows and beyond. 

This farmstay is one of many active and immersive learning experiences for elementary and middle school students at the Saratoga Waldorf School; others include a world language immersion trip in the 7th grade, the experience of a 5th grade Pentathlon in connection to the study of Ancient Greece, and an 8th grade immersion trip that changes from year-to-year. In most recent years, classes have visited Washington, D.C. or sailed a schooner along the Penobscot Bay in Maine.