Farm Animals

Vocabulary

sheep, goats, cow, barn, wool, chicken, eggs

For this activity, you will need:

Pictures of various farm animals displayed on the bulletin board or on a large wall labeled “Farm Animals.” You’ll find many downloadable pictures of farm animals in the Image Bank collection on Teachers’ Domain.

A copy of the words to either “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” or “Farmer in the Dell” in order to lead the children in singing

Directions

The activities listed below may span several days and may be completed in any order that is appropriate for your classroom.

1. Have the children watch the “What Do You Get from That?” video.
2. Seat the children so they can all see the display of farm animal pictures.
3. Ask the children where they might find these animals—where do the animals live?
4. Ask the children what the animals do for people. Point to the picture of the cow (gives us milk), the chicken (lays eggs), the sheep (supplies wool), the dog (guards animals or herds sheep), the cat (chases away mice), the horse (pulls a plow), and the duck (provides down for comforters, pillows, and winter jackets).
5. If possible, take a field trip to a farm to see real animals at work
6. Have the children sing, “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” Cue them about which animal to insert in the verse by holding up different animal pictures.
7. Create a class mural of farm animals. Rolled paper donated from a newspaper or printer makes a great base for the mural. Encourage the children to work in partners to draw the animals, complete with barn, barnyard and farmer’s house, tractor, truck, etc.


Enrichment Activities

Animal Charades

For this activity, you will need:

Pictures of various farm animals. These can be from previous lessons, pictures from magazines, or images downloaded from the Internet. If you prefer, you can cut out the shapes of the animals.

A large bowl

Directions
1. Place the animal pictures in the large bowl.
2. Have the children take turns drawing a picture from the bowl without showing it to the rest of the class.
3. Have each child pretend to be the animal while the others try to guess its identity.


Making Play Dough Animals

Children will love creating their favorite animals from play dough—especially if you let them help make the play dough using the recipe listed below.

Kool-Aid Play Dough Recipe

For this recipe, you will need:

2½ to 3 cups flour

2 cups boiling water with 1 package Kool-Aid

3 tablespoons corn oil

1/2 cup salt

1 tablespoon alum

What to Do:

Mix the ingredients and knead with flour. It may take up to one extra cup of flour. If it’s humid, you may have to use more. The recipe will keep for a few days. The dough is flexible, colorful, and has a nice fragrance.

Directions
1. Engage the children in a conversation about the types of animals they’ve studied (farm animals, pets, wild animals, zoo animals, etc.). (It may be helpful to bring out pictures and/or charts from some of the previous animal activities to get the conversation started.)
2. Ask the children how these animals are “different.” Ask the children how these animals are the “same.” What characteristics do they all have?
3. Provide each child a portion of play dough and give her time to create her favorite animal.
4. If you choose to limit the discussion into a category for animals (pets, farm animals, wild animals), then it’s an easy transition to let the children write a story about their animals.