Guidestone’s Farmhands Education Program is an excellent opportunity for kids of all ages to experience what local small-scale farming is all about. From their watershed to their foodshed, young people will come to understand the dynamic processes that put food on the table. A visit to the farm will introduce kids to a variety of animals, including our famous draft horses - Jake, Jack and Ike - Pocket the pony, Alice the pig, a family of Nigerian Dwarf goats as well as other heritage breeds.

Of course, there’s more to learn and enjoy than just petting the animals. In cooperation with Weathervane and Turner Farms, kids will be able to assist in a working CSA garden, participate in building sustainable structures, milk a goat, study aquatic ecology at Cottonwood Creek, experience living history, produce written reflections, engage in fun team and character-building activities and much more.

Farmschool activities serve public schools, charter schools, and after-school programs offering half-day, full-day and overnight events. Our programs are curriculum-based and focus on food, farming, fiber and shelter. Activities provide young people with a hands-on learning experience of where the food they eat comes from and what it takes to provide a safe, wholesome food source. Students will learn about good animal husbandry practices and what domestic animals provide in their lives. They will discover resource recycling practices (composting), renewable energy concepts (cooking on a solar oven), and the farm as a source of natural building materials (straw-bale construction).

Farmhands programs are conducted at a variety of farm sites in the Upper Arkansas Valley between April 1st - November 1st. 

Teachers
Our programs offer an excellent opportunity for you to augment your in-class curriculum in a fun and tangible way. Your students will benefit from the diversity of our programs and capacity for discovery in these real world experiences. We aim to craft each of our programs so that kids with different learning styles feel challenged and engaged. As a result, all students are able to walk away with a sense of fulfillment.

Expeditionary Learning
Expeditionary learning is an active pedagogy that takes kids out of the classroom and educates them using a combination of academics, community service and real world experiences. By providing an opportunity to harvest vegetables while learning about healthy eating and nutrition, or competing with our draft horses in a contest to pull horse-drawn implements while studying animal anatomy, your students will be able to assimilate their lessons with greater ease and longer recall.

Integrated Curriculum
Our Farmhands programs promote the philosophy of an integrated curriculum. Whether your students are studying American Indian-European relations in History class, romantic poets in Language Arts, or aquatic biology in Science class, we can provide programs tailored to specific situations that achieve cross-curriculum education and encourage integrated learning.

Aligns with Standards
As teachers in both the private and public sectors, we know the value placed on standards. Our lessons meet state and national standards and, upon request, we can provide a summary of the standards our programs meet.

Andrea Earley Coen, Program Director
(970)309-3175

P.O. Box 130
15284 County Road 350
Buena Vista, CO  81211
(719) 395-5814

email: farmhands@care2.com