I am ready for a long road flight for working with a week- or months-long projects.
The Poconos Residency
The Residency is a cornerstone of our K-6 program. Three to four times a year — once a season — students travel to a working farm retreat in the Pocono Mountains, with its own farm, forest trails, guest house, and restaurant. For a weekend or several nights at a time, they run a real household together: cooking, caring for animals, studying the land, and learning alongside local friends and the people who run the place.
Our home away from home in the Pocono Mountains — where sustainability, leadership, and independence are practiced, not just discussed.
Good to know
Beyond practical skills, the residency builds character. Through shared meals, hikes, s’mores and stories around the campfire — and quiet evenings in pajamas by the fireplace, someone at the piano — students develop a strong sense of belonging, respect, and inclusive teamwork. This experience directly reinforces the values of our classroom community.
The natural setting serves as a dynamic extension of the classroom, sparking curiosity and providing authentic contexts for science, ecology, and social studies. Students return with broadened perspectives, a deeper understanding of sustainability, and enhanced confidence and leadership skills. Three years in, the Residency has become the heart of our program — the trip students count down to all semester.
The natural setting serves as a dynamic extension of the classroom, sparking curiosity and providing authentic contexts for science, ecology, and social studies. Students return with broadened perspectives, a deeper understanding of sustainability, and enhanced confidence and leadership skills. Three years in, the Residency has become the heart of our program — the trip students count down to all semester.
A child-led experience
➡︎ The farm. Students keep bees, walk the goats, feed the fish, and look after the chickens — including the ones they hatched themselves in our spring life cycle project, who retire to this very farm.
➡︎ Food, full circle. From growing superfoods in the garden to planning the menu, shopping, cooking, and serving — students run their own kitchen. Pasta, salads, and wood-fired pizza from local ingredients are the usual favorites.
➡︎ Business, for real. Students spend time with the owners of the retreat, learning how a sustainable business actually works — operations, marketing, strategy — and pitch their own ideas in brainstorm circles.
➡︎ Research in the field. Forest expeditions with field notes and sketches, hikes, and essays — for example, on how climate and biome shape the way the farm works.
➡︎ Local friends. Students share lessons and hikes with children from the local school — Spanish class included.
➡︎ Food, full circle. From growing superfoods in the garden to planning the menu, shopping, cooking, and serving — students run their own kitchen. Pasta, salads, and wood-fired pizza from local ingredients are the usual favorites.
➡︎ Business, for real. Students spend time with the owners of the retreat, learning how a sustainable business actually works — operations, marketing, strategy — and pitch their own ideas in brainstorm circles.
➡︎ Research in the field. Forest expeditions with field notes and sketches, hikes, and essays — for example, on how climate and biome shape the way the farm works.
➡︎ Local friends. Students share lessons and hikes with children from the local school — Spanish class included.
What students do at the Residency
Morning animal care at the Residency — one of the students' daily responsibilities.
Students stay in the guest house together with their Hopscotch teachers, two kids in a bedroom.
We travel in small groups of 8−10 students on our own school bus, with our own driver. The ratio is one teacher per four children, so there are always plenty of adults — plus our founder and CEO, Iryna Drozdovska, who never misses a trip.
There is full phone and wi-fi coverage at the retreat, and parents are welcome to call. We also create a shared parent group for every trip and post photo and video updates with captions every couple of hours — a real-time backstage view of the residency.
Students plan the menu, shop, cook, and serve — negotiating the details among themselves, just as they do in the classroom. Teachers cross-check every plan against our allergy list and approve each menu before it reaches the table.
