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Our family lives in an urban / suburban area, so we don’t get a chance to see any farms on a regular basis unless we make an effort to go visit one. Nonetheless, I think it is important for my kids to know about farms and farm animals and agriculture. In this post I’m sharing several farm-themed activities we did during our Life on the Farm unit.
Note: For more kid-friendly farm activities and printables, see my Life on the Farm Unit Study page.
Oriental Trading Company sent me two of each item featured in this post – one for review purposes and one to give away. These items were provided in exchange for an honest review. All activities using these materials were planned by me and all opinions are my own.
I frequently purchase and use items from Oriental Trading Company in our learning activities. What I love most about Oriental Trading Company is that they have such a great selection of low-cost materials for use with just about any theme. Because I have been a fan for such a long time, I was thrilled to receive four different farm-themed materials to use as part of our farm unit. At the end of this post you will have the opportunity to enter to win your own farm-themed materials from Oriental Trading Company!
Farm-themed mural
Oriental Trading Company sent me a package of 500 Fabulous Foam Self-Adhesive Farm Shapes. I placed some of the stickers into a basket and set them out for the kids to create a mural.
They had so much fun placing the animals into “families” on the large poster board I hung for them. They also gave their fine motor skills a workout as they peeled the backs of the stickers.
They worked on their mural for nearly an hour, and ended up with quite the farm scene!
Make your own farm books
Using the 500 Fabulous Foam Self-Adhesive Farm Shapes, I had the kids create their very own farm-themed books. They chose stickers to put on their pages, and then used our lowercase alphabet stamps to write in the names of each item.
In the end, each kid had a wonderful little farm booklet that they could “read” by themselves. 
Farm animal patterning
I sorted out stickers from our 500 Fabulous Foam Self-Adhesive Farm Shapes for XGirl to practice some patterning. She was really engaged in this activity in part because she really enjoyed the fine motor practice of having to peel the backs off of the stickers.
Farm animal puzzles
When I saw these 3-D farm animal puzzles at the Oriental Trading Company website, I knew my kids would love them! Each set comes with four animals: a pig, cow, horse, and chickens.
We punched the animals out of the backing.
And then we went to work assembling them. The kids did their best, but found it quite challenging to put the pieces together so I had to provide some help.
But in the end they had a great time playing with their new animal friends.
Farm paintings with stencils and sponges
Another item we received was some farm-themed stencils. I set them out along with paint and little sponges for the kids to create their own farm paintings.
I showed them how to hold the stencil with one hand while using the painting sponges with the other hand.
The kids were really engrossed in this work and made many, many paintings (only a few of which are represented below). 
Farm animal do-a-dot activities
We received a pack of farm animal dot marker activity sheets. For the sheep, we used white tissue paper squares
For the other animals, we used our do-a-dot markers
More farm learning resources
More farm posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Farm Printables Pack
- Farm do-a-dot printables
- Farm grid games printables
- Books about farm animals
- Farm Montessori activities
- Learning about farm animals
- Fall on the Farm sensory bin
For more kid-friendly farm activities and printables, see my Life on the Farm Unit Study page and my Farm Unit Pinterest board. Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Unit Ideas: Farm on Pinterest.
Products mentioned in this post:
I would love to win this for my 4 year old son. He loves farm animal books!
I forgot to mention that this would be a great addition to a farm animals unit for us.
Wow, those are neat. I had no idea Oriental Trading Co. made things like that. I will definitely share this!
I teach 4 and 5 year olds in a small preschool. We will be learning about farms this fall and these would be great items to add to our art and fine-motor activities!
I would use this for my 2yr old daughter and 4 yr old son.
How fun! My 3 yr old LOVES all things farm so I’d like to win this for him. We would have lots of fun together with it. Thanks for the chance!
DS4 has a farm unit at pre-school and I love to give them this to use.
Wow! What an incredible unit. Looks like everyone really enjoyed learning about the farm! My little one would just LOVE this. He’s really into animals right now!
My kids love farm stuff!
Those are great! Love the idea/activities and would love to do them with my girls!
Oriental Trading has such neat items and ideas. My storytime kids at the library would have such a blast with the Farm Theme Unit. The farm theme is always a hit!!
I would like to have the Elf Costume…I like dressing up for the Holidays for Storytime.
Absolutely loved the idea of making a farm book using the foam stickers and lowercase letter stamps! I would use all the items with my 6 and 8 year old to supplement what they are learning in school. I would also utilize the items for the nursery/preschool I am hoping to open in the near future! Thanks for the opportunity!
Carla M.
Let the farm fun start
We are starting our farm unit next week! Love the ideas you’ve shared here!
The alphabet stamps and bean bags look fun on Oriental Trading…lots of things to use them for!
I would love to win this to use with my students at school! I am a school-based speech/language pathologist, and I do a farm theme for a couple of weeks!
I’d like to win because I absolutely love your activities, but my budget won’t always allow me to purchase these fun items. My son loves farm animals and would get a big kick out of everything!
I would love this to add to my farm theme !
It would be fun to do this with my son, age 2!
I would love to have the DIY Piggy Banks!
I am planning to start homeschooling my daughter in October, after we are settled into our new home. These would be some awesome resources to get us started.
I like the My First Calendar Magnetic Chart.
This sounds like a great resource to use with my children for homeschool.
Thanks so much 🙂
This would be great to use with my four and almost 2 year old children! The variety of activities is wonderful.
My kids love the farm! We go to our local farm market to pick berries and look at the animals…so much fun!
This would make a great learning activity for my nephew.
I would like to buy the bulk candy assortment for Halloween.
My children in my classroom would enjoy the fun on the farm they can use it in the block center.
Love this! My son would have so much fun using fun on the farm! 🙂
My kids love farm stuff, we have one puzzle and some animals, but that is all. It would be fun to do a study on animals and let them have fun with it.
I would love to win this giveaway to add some activities to our farm activities line-up that we have planned later this month. We also love Oriental Trading Companies products which are great for crafts and learning activities.
What a variety of farm unit ideas! My daughter loves making books and would adore a farm themed one. We’ve been discussing where food comes from and this would fit right in. Thanks for the chance to win!
I hadn’t realized OTC carried so many learning materials. I’d really love to have the Stack it High Pegs and Pegboards.
My daughter will be two in December and I plan to start homeschooling her in January. I am collecting materials now and this would be a great to have. Thank you for posting!
I will definitely have to shop OTC more often!! This would be a great addition to our ever expanding farm unit. I’m from the city and have moved to farm country, so I still have a lot to learn 🙂
This looks great for my 3 year old.
I would love to get this for my farm crazy two-yr-old boy! 🙂 Looking for things he can do while I school his 3 older sisters and take car of his baby brother. He would love this! Thanks for the chance to win.
The Fold and Store Caddy would be such a help in my multi-purpose Children’s Ministry classroom.
I would love to win to use these great learning tools at home with my preschooler!
These are fabulous resources that I’d love to add to my Farms unit! Thanks for the opportunity 🙂
Just came across your site. I love it. Thank you.
I have a 2 year old who loves animals and I know he’d love these!!
We are a tot school family (aka preschool homeschool – hoping to homeschool grade school as well) and these would be SO much fun with a farm themed week for my almost 3 year old!
My boys would love these! I like how they can be good for toddlers through preschoolers.
My daughter loves farm animals and would love this prize pack
i’ve been looking for some inexpensive resources for homeschooling this year–these look perfect!
My kids would love this! We are homeschooling two kinder’s and one first grader.
I would love to win this to use to teach my handicapped son about farms and animals. Thank you so much.
We live on a farm and my 3 kids (6, 5, 2.5) are all about farming! They love it all and this would be great fun for them!
I’ve been keeping an on their free-shipping special and it’s on right now, so I think I might be putting an order in! I like their erasers and foam shapes – great manipulatives for theme-based math.
Yes, I just placed an order for some Halloween-themed items yesterday – I love free shipping!!
I’d love to win these for my kids! I home school my children and have two doing pre-school/pre-k. They would love this!
Oooh, I love Oriental Trading’s bat stackable crayons!
My children would LOVE this! We are always looking for fun farm stuff to do & learn about. We always include a farm study in our homeschooling year! =)
I have been homeschooling my daughters for a few years, but it is time to add in our toddler boy to the school day. I have been thinking that having some themed learning would be a good way to let the girls have some fun and to include the tot in some no pressure exposure to “academics”.
Oh this is so cute. Okay so my daughter is 8 but her little friends are all ages and she would love to share this with them. So cute! Love your printables by the way. Amazing job.
I think I would like some of their Thanksgiving crafts.
The magnetic calendar chart looks like a nice way to introduce calendars into our morning circle time. There are several other items that caught my eye,too.
My son would love the dinosaur stencils from Oriental Trading.
I love Oriental Trading. I teach preschool thru elementary at my church and we use a lot of Oriental goodies.
Their faith based Christmas items are especially nice. I would love to have this package for our lesson of Noah.
I would like to win the giveaway because it would enhance my son’s homeschool experience for our farm unit (we’re actually doing “C is for cow” soon and then adding other farm activities to it). Money is SUPER tight right now for even the little things so winning this giveaway would be a fantastic way for my son to get more out of this unit. Thanks for your wonderful unit ideas!
My daughter would enjoy these so much. We have a number of farm-themed books, and I could plan a whole unit of farm-themed activities with the help of these great supplies.
These would be great for a farm themed unit study!
We homeschool and my little boys love farm animals!
My 3 and 5 year old boys would love the Large War Plane Gliders. They have propellers 😉
My daughter would love any type of arts and crafts I can get my hands on.
Oh my goodness it looks like so much fun! Thank you for sharing your hard work and your learning with your children. My girls would love this giveaway!
So adorable! My kiddos would love this. They love going to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm.
My kiddos would have a blast with these! They LOVE animals!
So adorable, my kiddos would love that!
My boys would have so much fun playing with the farm animals.
I would like to use them for activities for my 4-year-old 🙂
I’d also like the 90-pack of sea creatures for sensory bins (and many other things – I love this company!)
I’m teaching preschool at our co-op and this will be perfect!
–Gena
A thanksgiving craft to do with my preschoolers.
–Gena
what an awesome gift pack! my 4 year old will love it!! 🙂
We homeschool and are on a tight budget. We try to get out of the books and do hands on things when we can and this would be just the thing! We would be so appreciative!
My children would love this and I would benefit from it because I’m always looking for ways to teach them in a fun way. I do not have much creativity so I need all the help I can get and free is the only way I can get it!
It would be loads of fun to have these for a farm unit!
I would love to win this as I am a new homeschooling mom with 3 and 7 year old boys who could both use these items in our curriculum.
I love these! I have 2 currently being homeschooled (5 and 3) with 2 more coming (1 and unborn!). These would be AWESOME to add to our homeschool especially when trying to involve the little ones!
I would love to win this. My youngest loves farm animals!
I would love to have the Thanksgiving Give Thanks frames. They would make cute presents for all of our grandparents.
My kids would love this. They love anything animals.
My 3 and 4 year old would love this giveaway! It’ll go great when we learn about farm animals later this year!
These would be so much fun to use with my grand daughter in our “Grammy School” A farm unit is coming soon!
At Oriental Trading I’ve been checking out the spider ring toss game.
I would love to win this for my 3 year old son. We just started homeschool preschool and this would be a great addition to our curriculum.
Farm themed fun with hands-on learning is always a blast 🙂 When I do things like this I am also fortunate enough to have some farmers that share my same rural road to bring the learning to life. Thank you for linking up this week to the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop 🙂
I am taking a Baby Signs class and have an assignment but even more than that I would love to have a Farm unit to use with my children and my Family Child Care
My grandson would love this! We buy from Oriental Trading all of the time! Love that site!
I love all the ideas. They are very fresh. Glad I found your blog
Any of the active play materials. I feel like I do too little of this with my 4 year old son.
This would be great for our homeschooling family, esp. for my kindergartener and pre-schooler.
I would love to have this for my little guy
My son loves farm animals and we are using them to learn to count, sort, etc. right now! 🙂
I’d love to use this in my classroom with early readers and with my grandson. The stencils are adorable!
At Oriental Trading I’d love to get the 50 PIece tote bag assortment for my class
I’d love to share this with my nephew
I have twin daughters who love animals and they would really enjoy doing this!
We are about to start learning about the farm. This would be perfect timing.
I do childcare and we would love to have this set. I have twins that are so in to tractors and animals right now!
This would be such a great giveaway to win, we would have so much fun with everything. Both my boys are obsessed with tractors, so a farm unit would be right up their alley!
My almost four year old daughter would LOVE this. Perfect for our farm work.
I would love the alphabet stamps from Oriental trading company.
I would LOVE to win this for my preschool students!
I have lots of boys this year, and many of them live on
farms and this is their MAIN interest!
Thank you!!
I’d love to win this for my daughter! She loves animals.
These are so wonderful. My son would love these. He also has friends that come over and their last name is Farmer. Perfect fit their;) The multiple uses are incredible. I saw these and my brain just started running. My son and I are just starting out on the home school adventure so we don’t have very many supplies. This would be a great addition to the few supplies that I’ve made (which can be quite time consuming). I forgot all the great things that Oriental Trading Co. sales. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve taught.
Wow, my children would love,love, love this!
Thanks for the opportunity to win.
We love the farm! In fact, our family is called the “Hulse Farm” and each of my children is an animal from the farm. A bunny, a lamb and a rooster. They each have qualities from those animals which is how we came up with the “Farm”.
It would be fun to do this with my son, age 2 and daughter, age 6.
My kids would really enjoy this son, age 2 and daughter, age 6.
My 2 year old would love these!
WOW these items look so neat! My son and I would use these while learning about animals on the farm. We are learning animal sounds currently and he loves it! I would love to win!
My three grandbabies would love this. They all love farm animals.
They have so many great products. I’d like to have Just Hammer Away Shape Set for my grandson.
I think my granddaughters would have a wonderful time playing with these.
I had no idea OT had dot marker papers. I just bought the Halloween pack to supplement your fabulous Halloween pack!