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.

A is for Animals

Interesting morning!  Goes to prove that, as a teacher, we must be flexible!  We didn't even touch one activity we had planned but we did activities that weren't planned today because that's just how the interest and conversation went.  So though we didn't do everything...it was still a profitable morning!  Maybe even more profitable that if we had just done what was planned.  :-)

A few activities we enjoyed:

Cloud Dough Exploration

This was something I had come across on Pinterest.  The original website was

http://www.jugglingwithkids.com/2011/11/cloud-dough.html

8 C. of flour to 1 C. of baby oil.  Mix well with your hands.

My thoughts toward Cloud Dough...

*  Something we'd do again, yes.

*  Messy, yes.  But a clean messy.  Meaning, the flour gets all over but it cleans up easily.  I think playing with it in a sensory table vs. at the floor level would lead to a little less mess.  But if I was large center based, I would encourage the use of smocks!  We changed clothing for the two youngest. 

*  Makes your room smell lovely and your hands soft.

*  We used one batch with two people but really, I'd probably use one batch for one person next time. 

*  Next time, we'll play with it using spoons, cups, and other kitchen supplies.  The safari animals are always fun in sensory material but doesn't lead to the molding that could be done. 

*  All age groups would enjoy.

Our focus letter this week is A.  These past few weeks have been I, J and now A.  All three of these letters begin in the center vs. in the upper left hand corner. 

This was a very simple activity that they loved!  Remember that it's not necessary to always have "new" activities and sometimes the simpler, the better!  I did have a capital A lightly drawn on the page.  We talked about how it started in the center and that's where they put their first sticker.  They then put stickers on as they would write the letter.  Great conversation with the variety of animal stickers that were available!  (The white A was T.'s-2.5 years old. Shows a bit of his personality.  Very orderly.  He loved this activity.  However, keep in mind that many 2 year olds would just put the stickers anywhere on the page, and that is okay.)

There Was an Old Lady is always a favorite . So many variations out there now also!

This CD, book, and flannel set came from Lakeshore Learning.  Stories like these lead to retellings pretty easily. 

They had noticed with There Was an Old Lady that those animals we would find at the farm. This led directly into creating a venn diagram about farm and zoo animals.  I should have started with those flannel pieces because we did talk about how we'd find a fly, spider, and bird at the zoo...not just at the farm.  :-)

When doing Venn Diagrams...remember to think from their perspective and what their experiences might be.  They put a horse and chicken in the middle of the two circles.  Why?  Because our local zoo has those.  :-)  I'm surprised they didn't put a cow there also since our local zoo have cows also.  It's more on the petting zoo type of zoo.   The bottom right picture shows a bit of disorganization.  That is because this was not a planned activity.  :-D  They handled the disorganization fine but it's not how I would have done the activity if I had planned it.  We got talking about where those zoo animals would have lived if they weren't at the zoo...which leads to conversation about habitats which leads to Ms. Amber scrounging for a visual of habitats which leads to them getting all excited and wanting to match the pictures to the habitats.  LOL  So instead of their normal World World segment as I get lunch together...they worked with habitats and animals.  :-P  Can't complain!

And...we even got a good 30+ minutes outside today.  Been an interesting winter and there have been more than desired days that we were inside for whatever the reason.