Grade Three Farm Trip

During third grade there is a significant developmental shift, often called

the “nine-year change.” This is a pivotal year in each child’s life. Children begin to feel separate from the world and others. What used to feel like I am one with the world can start to feel like I am separate from the world around me. This time can bring insecurity and a sense of loss to the third grader.

Waldorf education meets the children with a practical education about what humans need to live on the Earth. The children are grounded in practical skills, real-world work, and human responsibility, helping them feel capable and secure in the world. 

One of the most significant events in the Waldorf third grade is the farm trip. The students, wary of leaving their parents for four nights, embark on a train ride to New York City, changing trains for their final destination in upstate New York.

On the farm trip, students experience the ancient rhythm of human life. They feed animals, work in the garden soil, carry water and hay. These tasks are not symbolic, they are real, necessary and grounding. While the children care for the land and its creatures, they realize what comes with their newfound feeling of separation from home; that they can do something meaningful in the world. These tasks of feeding animals, milking cows and gathering eggs shows each child the deep interdependence of humanity with the world around us.

This feeling of interdependence guides the children away from feeling isolated and alone, to feeling responsible and that they belong.

On our trip they learned about the grains we studied in class, and experienced the process of milling and grinding wheat into flour. We happened to be at the farm on one of the two days in the year that the sheep are sheared, so they got to see exactly where the wool for their handwork projects originates from. 

On the train ride back, the children's confidence had markedly increased, with some even wanting to return to the farm in the summer for a longer period. The farm trip is often a clear marker in the five year grades journey. A shift in consciousness and awareness of the world and an entry into a world where each child feels in control of their own destiny. 

Third grades haul hay to the barn at Hawthorne Valley Farm.