The Farm

By Guest

June 23, 2011

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Expressive Arts & Design (EAD)

Ideas and Suggestions: