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  • Juliet Mickelburgh The penultimate in our series of topic support articles, containing 12 focus activity plans, a booklist and a mindmap. These are ideas only: ANY CURRICULUM LINKS DO NOT RELATE TO THE CURRENT (2012) EYFS REQUIREMENTS

    This is a topic with rich resources for talking about caring for the environment, animals, and for ourselves. It provides plenty of opportunities for outdoor learning, as well as lots of story books to link to different themes. Looking at farms that grow crops and vegetables extends the scope of this topic and allows for lots of fun with planting, growing and cooking!

     

    Overview

    This topic support article includes a book list, mind map and suggested activities to cover the seven areas of learning. The mindmap bullet points are included as a separate document for ease of reference, but also listed in the 'Ideas and Suggestions' sections below. Each topic focus provides a book list and a brainstorm of ideas for activities linked to the Areas of Learning and Development, as well as some activity plans. There are usually book recommendations and other resource suggestions in the topic forum as well, so make sure you have a browse through the discussions to see if there is anything else of interest.

     

    Personal Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

    Communication & Language and Literacy (CL and L)

    Understanding the world (UW)

    Mathematics (M)

    Physical Development (PD)

    Expressive Arts & Design (EAD)

     

     

    Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions

    • What do animals eat?
    • Have a mini harvest celebration
    • Grow some vegetables or herbs
    • Collect seeds on a walk
    • Take care of the environment – when you go on a country walk shut gates, don’t drop litter etc.
    • Make porridge
    • Small World Farm
    • Difference between town and countryside
    • Changing seasons – what happens on a farm at different times of the year?
    • Sharing – The Little Red Hen
    • Safety on the farm – machinery, washing hands etc.

    Activities

    Keeping Safe/forums/uploads/word.gif/forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Caring For Animals/forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    (Back to contents list )

     

    Communication& Language and Literacy (CL and L)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions:

    • Farm animal puppets
    • Stories with props

      Songs and Rhymes

    • Alliteration with initial sound e.g. clumsy cow, happy horse
    • Act out stories (e.g. The Enormous Turnip/ The Three Little Pigs)
    • Animal sounds listening games
    • Role play area – Farm shop/ Animal Barn
    • Farm story bag/feely bag
    • Matching cards – adult and baby animals
    • Names for adult and baby animals
    • Talk about different jobs around the farm – mucking out/shearing sheep/milking time etc.
    • Make an interactive display about a particular farm animal – include facts, books, small world animals, puppets etc.

    Activities

    Farm Story Bag /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Animal Alliteration /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    (Back to contents list)

     

    Understanding the world (UW)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions:

    • Visit a Farm
    • Role play area – Farm Shop/Animal Barn
    • Grow your own wheat
    • Duck pond in the water tray
    • Small world farm – on play mat/in tray with sand, earth or straw
    • Make porridge
    • Make bread
    • Make animal biscuits

      Make boiled eggs/egg sandwiches/pancakes

    • Look at sheep’s wool and compare with balls of wool for knitting
    • Spin some wool
    • Look for things that are made of wool
    • Sort different seeds
    • Investigate ears of corn
    • Look at similarities and differences between crop farms and animal farms
    • Farming around the world
    • Investigate animal coverings – fur/feathers/skin/wool

    Activities

    The Journey of a Jumper /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Take Rosie for a Walk /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

     

    Display example

    (Back to contents list)

     

    Mathematics (M)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions:

    • Use egg boxes and make and count play dough eggs
    • Count sets of animals
    • Sort animals – either different types of animal, or adult and baby animals, or farm animals from zoo animals
    • Sort by features, such as number of legs
    • Sort harvest produce into fruit and vegetables
    • Role play area – money and counting in the Farm Shop
    • Make squares of coloured paper to represent fields (brown, yellow, green) and make repeating patterns
    • Sequence animals e.g. 1 pig, 2 sheep, 1 pig, 2 sheep.
    • Five little ducks in the water tray
    • Survey of the children’s favourite animals
    • Count money in and out of piggy banks
    • Small world farm – counting animals

    Activities

    Farmyard Homes /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Vegetable Box Delivery /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    (Back to contents list)

     

    Physical Development (PD)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions:

    • Pretend to be different types of farm machinery
    • Ride on tractors and trucks
    • Action rhymes
    • Make plasticine animals
    • Make animal homes out of construction toys
    • Move like animals – skip like lambs, paddle like ducks, gallop like horses etc.
    • Act out the Enormous Turnip Story – pretend to really pull the turnip, or have a mini ‘tug of war’ outside
    • Hide root vegetables in a tray filled with earth/in sand pit outside – provide spades and buckets for digging them out
    • Look at pictures of hen houses that have ramps – make ramps outside and go up and down them
    • Animal parachute games

    Activities

    Ploughing the Fields /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Farmyard Obstacles /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    (Back to contents list)

     

    Expressive Arts & Design (EAD)

     

    Ideas and Suggestions:

    • Role play areas
    • Songs and Rhymes
    • Weaving with wool
    • Making a farm collage
    • Farm animal masks
    • Make a scarecrow
    • Decorate old CDs and hang outside over your seeds to keep the birds off
    • Make homes for small world farm animals – hen house/pig sty/barn
    • Patchwork patterns – like the fields
    • Papier mache piggy banks
    • Mixing colours – pink for pigs/brown for horses

    Activities

    Make a Scarecrow /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    Noisy Animals /forums/uploads/word.gif /forums/uploads/pdficon.gif

    (Back to contents list)

     

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