A is for Animals- Farm

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Felt set, book, CD from Lakeshore Learning

Review:  The children love this felt set-especially being able to put animals in and out of the barn.  However from an adult perspective, the song on the CD goes very quickly and has a lot of "noise".  :-)  Not really toddler friendly but the preschoolers tend to keep up.  Also, the animal sound words in the book are not what are sung in the song.  Hmmm!  But overall, the materials are relatively high quality and you could always purchase the felt set separate from the book and CD.

Weekly Reader: Baby Animals

After Old MacDonald, we read our Baby Animal Weekly Reader magazine.  Then matched adult animal to baby animal.  Great vocabulary builder for toddlers.  I chose this simple match because I have a toddler here that is getting close to preschool age and sits in with us during group times.  I love the Montessori materials available for animal families though.  Male/Female/Baby.  Here is one link with free cards you can consider.  www.mymontessorimoments.com/2011/01/28/farm-animal-families/.

Farm Animal Rhyming

A very simple way to see if my students truly understand the concept of rhyming.  Like any activity that uses pictures, it's best to go through the pictures with the child so that the correct word is being used.  For example, there is an arrow pointing to the adult horse and the word we used here was mare.  Also, the rhyming word for cow was plow.  Jeep is another one that would be good to review.  For a copy of this printable click here-Farm Rhyming Printable.

Count and Compare

An excellent activity to reinforce math vocabulary, counting and numeral formation.  Feel free to print a copy for yourself. Count and Compare.  The way I created it was so that each numeral from 1-10 was represented.  I used this activity as an assessment, observing for counting with meaning, understanding more/less, and numeral formation.

Farm Animal Pattering Strips

The children love these strips!  The main reason is because they can make noise!  :-)  We use the animal sounds vs. saying just the animal names.  These are relatively easy to create. Would be great for a transitional activity in a larger setting. You may wish to use different animals or different patterns.  However, if you wish for a set to get you started click here-Farm Animal Patterning Strips.

Who Lives by the Barn?

This was one of our scissors activities.  The student cut out the barn only.  Having the animal squares precut helped the activity move along in a more timely manner.  After cutting out the barn, the student says the farm animal name, says the beginning sound, states and then write the letter on the blank.  So, for example....horse, /h/ /h/, h, and then writes H or h. Side note:  I encourage them to draw a picture of themselves as the farmer on the barn door (there is a square in the pdf. file that can be used for the pattern of the barn door).  K. had a sad face on her's.  So I asked her why and wrote her reason on the back of the barn door.  Farmer K. was sad because a cow had hit her.  :-P  For your copy click here-Who lives by the barn?

Farm Scene Dictation

Digital cameras are a lovely addition to a educational setting!  Here we simply took a picture of her finished felt board farm scene and she dictated a "story".  :-)

Had more planned to share of the things we did this week but I lost the majority of the blog somehow or another and had to go back and retype and upload the pictures/links again.  So all I have time for today.  Hope you find something useful!  Reminder that these printables provided are for personal or classroom use only.  Thanks.