More Than a Farm School

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Leaning Post Acres is a small working homestead and farm school in the Sonoran Desert of Picture Rocks, Arizona. We live here, raise animals, grow food, care for livestock, and practice the everyday skills of farmstead life on 5 acres. What we produce here—along with the knowledge and skills we gain along the way—is part of what we share with our community.

We believe some of the most meaningful learning happens when you can roll up your sleeves and be part of it. Our animals, gardens, tools, and daily farm work become opportunities to ask questions, solve problems, explore, and discover how things work. For our young Farmsteaders, that means learning agricultural science through real experiences on a working farm—not simply learning about farming from a book.

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But the farm offers more than academic learning.

Time spent caring for animals can build responsibility and confidence. Brushing a goat, feeding the chickens, carrying a bucket, planting a seed, or helping with a daily chore gives children the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. Sensory experiences—hay, soil, water, plants, animals, sounds, textures, and the desert around us—invite children to slow down and engage with the world around them.

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Farm life also provides natural opportunities to practice communication, cooperation, boundaries, problem-solving, independence, and emotional regulation. Children can move, explore, make choices, take a break when they need one, and return when they're ready. There doesn't always have to be a right answer or a finished product. Sometimes learning happens simply by observing a goat, getting your hands in the dirt, or discovering that you can do something you weren't sure you could do.

We strive to create an environment where children with different interests, abilities, comfort levels, and learning styles can participate in meaningful ways. Our goal isn't to create a perfect experience—it's to create a welcoming one where children can 

learn at their own pace, build confidence through real experiences, and find their place on the farm.

Learn • Explore • Care • Grow

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These four words describe the heart of Leaning Post Acres.

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Learn — Discover agricultural science, animal care, nature, and practical farmstead skills through real-world experiences.

Explore — Follow curiosity, get your hands dirty, observe the natural world, and discover how things work.

Care — Learn what it means to care for animals, plants, the land, ourselves, and the people around us.

Grow — Build knowledge, confidence, independence, responsibility, and a deeper connection to the world around you.

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And we're always learning, too. Farmsteading is a lifelong process, and no one person knows everything. We learn from experience, from one another, and from people who have spent years developing skills we want to learn. That's why we bring farmers, homesteaders, educators, and other specialists to the farm to share their knowledge through select adult classes and workshops.

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At Leaning Post Acres, the farm is more than the setting for our programs. The farm itself is part of the classroom—and sometimes, the experience of being here is part of the learning, too.