Farm animals are a great topic of study for preschoolers. I recently completed a Life on the Farm unit with my two kids, 4-year-old QBoy and 3-year-old XGirl.
When I start a new unit with the kids, I usually plan out a few learning objectives to keep me on track with our activities. For our farm unit, here are just a few of the objectives I hoped to achieve while learning about farm animals:
- The kids will be able to recognize and identify common farm animals
- The kids will know the mother, father, and baby names for common farm animal families (e.g, hen, rooster, and chick are all part of the chicken family)
- The kids will know the sounds made by common farm animals
- The kids will know what kinds of products we get from farm animals
Toward that end, we did several activities to help us achieve these objectives for our learning about farm animals.
Note: For more kid-friendly farm activities and printables, see my Life on the Farm Unit Study page.
Farm animal memory game
I printed some farm animal memory cards from my Farm Printable Pack so we could play memory. My kids love this game, and doing it with farm animals was a great way to reinforce the names of the animals.
Farm animal families
I got this wonderful farm animal families printable from Montessori MOMents. We used this to learn the names for the father, mother, and baby animals in each animal family. First we matched the picture-with-label cards to the picture-only cards. We also matched animals from our Safari Ltd Down on the Farm Toob
How to milk a cow
We didn’t have the opportunity to milk an actual cow, but we did something almost as good – we made our own cow udder from a rubber glove! I poked small holes in the finger tips with a pin, filled it with water, and then let the kids “milk” it.
They laughed so hard when the water squirt me!
What products come from animals
I found a great printable focused on farm animals and their by-products at Joyfully Weary. We used it to learn about the various food and non-food products that come from chickens, cows, sheep, ducks, and pigs.
Farm animal coverings
I planned a sticky wall activity to get the kids thinking about the fact that different farm animals have different types of coverings, such as hair, wool, and feathers.
To prepare, I used to painter’s tape
I then laid out a tray with feathers, cotton balls (wool), and yarn (hair).
The kids added the appropriate covering to each animal by sticking it to the clear contact paper
And this was the end result! XGirl, whose work is on the right, thought it was particularly funny that she completely covered her sheep so even its face was not showing. 🙂
Visit a goat farm
Finally, our family also took a trip to visit Harley Farms in Pescadero, CA, which specializes in goat cheeses. We got to meet some of the 200 or so goats at the farm. In this picture the kids are in the barn checking out the goat food.
We also got a tour of the goat milking machinery. We learned that it would take 10 minutes to milk one goat by hand, but with these pumps they can milk 14 goats in 4 minutes.
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
- Fun on the Farm preschool activities
- 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.
My kids are too old for your printables, but I wanted to tell you that they are adorable and I think it is so generous of you to share these at no cost!
Thanks, that’s so kind of you to say!
I love the activity with the feather, cottonballs and yarn. Very clever! I’m doing preschool at home with my four year, and it’s really helpful to see how you plan out a unit.
Hi Colleen – I hope it’s clear that we didn’t do the activities in the same order I post them. I group the activities for the posts because I think it makes the most sense for the reader or for someone searching for a particular type of farm-related activity.
I really like how you have objectives for each unit, thanks for sharing those, I need to make objectives and goals for the things we work on at home from school. I also love how you have them put appropriate fur on and matching using the 3 dimensional animals and also the word. And pretending to milk a cow, how cool!
You have some good ideas on here! We have the farm animal products cards too. They are great! Thanks for sharing!
I found your post on Science Sunday.
I love the way you went about planning this – so organised. I’m sure your kids learned heaps. I especially like the sticking feathers/wood/hair activity, and the trip to the goat farm looks wonderful.
Lucinda
I miss my kids being young enough we study farm animals. Great unit! I’m gonna go check out your giveaway.
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday again!
Hey! Thanks for the ideas ? I took some of your ideas for my students to experience it throughout their learning process and I bet they will enjoy it ?