Putnam Valley, N.Y. — On a sunny afternoon last week, while the rest of New York’s schoolchildren were stuck indoors, 15 kids were literally rolling around in the dirt while their parents looked on approvingly.
The children, most of whom are home-schooled, are
students in the Farm and Forest Home School program, a unique project of Eden
Village Camp and the Jewish Farm School. In its second year, Farm and Forest — believed to be the only example of a Jewish overnight camp catering specifically to home-schooled children — teaches a curriculum of nature-based education and Jewish values.
Participants, who range in age from 5-14, come to Eden Village Camp, in this Hudson Valley town, every few weeks during the fall and spring to learn science, agriculture, and Jewish thought in a hands-on setting.
Each session draws a few dozen participants, with 10 families consistently attending the program.
Home schooling has become increasingly common in the United States in recent years, with the U.S. Department of Education reporting 1.5 million home-schooled children nationally and 125,000 in New York state. While no data is available on Jewish families who home school, Ellen Brown — who coordinates Farm and Forest Home School — said that it is becoming more common than it once had been. Officials at the Torah Home Education Group, which sponsors an annual conference, put the number of Jewish home-schooling families at between several hundred and a few thousand.
At last week’s session, the group went on a nature walk in the forest together then broke into two groups: the ones 8 and under scavenged for seeds and worms across the farm while the older group wrestled with some weeds before planting kale, chard and collard greens.
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