'Farm School' in Harrisonville helps kids connect to farming, nature

The back to school rush is in full swing all over the metro, but just south of Kansas City a very different kind of school for young kids is wrapping up the first week of its fourth year.

It's called Farm School out at the Red Barn Ranch south of Kansas City, and it's part of one family's effort to keep telling the story of the American farmer.

Grant Stephens/KSHB

"All of those skills that the kids are needed to learn as preschoolers are learned but it's authentic learning," said Leslie Culpepper, who came up with the idea of Farm School with her cousin Matt Moreland.

"It's learning as they're playing and as they're feeding the animals. It's not just sitting down at a desk."

Culpepper is a former Harrisonville teacher with a passion both for education, and the farm life she grew up with.

“The whole idea behind farm school is getting kids out of their house, off technology and back to the country, back to the farm. Knowing where food comes from. Knowing how crops grow," she said.

Grant Stephens

“We do have a small classroom time where we do read-aloud and we talk about a certain topic, but most of our learning and most of our skills are learned outside.”

It's sort of like a preschool outdoors, where kids come learn a few times a week. For example, instead of counting wooden blocks, they'd count chicken eggs.

Culpepper says it's real, experiential learning.

The farm part of the farm school is where Moreland comes in. He's a farmer out at the Red Barn Ranch where the school is located.

Grant Stephens / KSHB

"In the world we live in today, people are further and further removed from agriculture. It's not their fault they didn't grow up on a farm, but their mom and dad didn't their grandparents didn't, so they don't have anybody to talk to," he said.

"They're so attentive, they want to know what's going on, they're curious, they want to learn."

The school currently has a wait list of over 300 students, but Moreland and Culpepper hope to expand the school soon to allow more kids to enroll.

KSHB 41 reporter Grant Stephens covers issues connected to access to housing and rent costs. Share your story idea with Grant .