Children love learning about animals!
These farm animal activities for preschoolers and kindergarteners are hands-on, interactive and play-based. They incorporate art, sensory play, dramatic play, stories and more.
Check out the following ideas and games for hands-on fun and learning!
1. Pretend Play
Introduce the theme with a fun story about farm animals, such as the one below, and then encourage pretend play by offering various materials for children to create a farm:
- Plastic farm animals and people
- Small cardboard boxes
- Building logs
- Small vehicles like trucks and tractors
- Raffia for hay
Play or read Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming:
2. Sing and Play “The Farmer in the Dell”
Sing and play the traditional circle or carpet game “The Farmer in the Dell”.
Start with the regular lyrics:
The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The farmer in the dell
The farmer takes a wife
The farmer takes a wife
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The farmer takes a wife
For each verse, introduce a different farm animal.
Watch the game here:
3. Paint Farm Animal Tracks
Show children animal footprints in non-fiction books or online.
Set out low containers of paint for kids to dip plastic animal figurines’ feet, to then press onto construction paper for fun animal prints.
You could also cut sponges into familiar animal footprint shapes for them to dip into paint and then stamp onto paper.
4. Dramatic Play Based on Jan Brett’s Books
Read The Hat, written and illustrated by Jan Brett.
Children imagine themselves living on a Scandinavian farm, meeting various animals that could live there.
On Brett’s website for The Hat, find printable farm animal face masks for children to use while retelling the story or for making up their own tales.
5. Mud Play
Read or watch the readings of books themed around farm animals and mud, such as Mrs. Wishy-Washy, written by Joy Cowley:
In a water table or plastic tubs, set up some sand mixed with small amounts of water to form mud.
Add small plastic farm animals for playing in the mud.
Let children “play in the mud” by setting out soft brown blankets for rolling and wallowing on the floor while making farm animal noises.
6. Sing and Move to “Down on Grandpa’s Farm” by Raffi
Sing, make animal sounds and move along with Raffi’s song, “Down on Grandpa’s Farm.”
Watch this video to see the real animals mentioned in the song:
7. Cow Painting
Look at pictures of various types of cows and chat about the similarities and differences.
Children discover that many cows have white skin mixed with other colours, such as brown or black.
Using droppers or brushes, get kids to experiment with adding other colours to the white paper, making sheets of “cow skin” or “cowhide.”
Those that are similar could possibly be grouped together in making large cutout cow murals for the wall.
8. Farm Animal Matching
Find pictures of adult and baby farm animals or print some and get kids to help cut around them and glue them onto index cards or poster board cut into squares.
Once the glue dries, children can take turns or work in groups to match baby animals with their adult counterparts.
Keys can be added to the backs of the cards for self-checking, such as numbers or images that match the pairs.
9. Birds on the Farm
Read books and look at pictures or videos of the various types of birds that live on farms around the world.
Discuss the similarities and differences:
- Whether they fly
- What they live in
- What they eat
- Why they often live on a farm
Look at and touch assorted types of seeds that birds can eat. These can be added to the sensory table or bins for scooping and pouring with small containers, shovels and scoops.
Connect this information to birds that live in the wild and set up a bird-feeding station outdoors for observation.
10. Farm Dress-Up
In the dramatic play area add plenty of farm-themed clothing and accessories to the bins:
- Denim and bandanas for farmers
- Stuffed farm animals
- Fuzzy/furry dress-up clothing
- Animal headband ears
- Play farming tools like shovels, rakes and hoes
Let children enjoy dressing up as farmers and farm animals!
11. Catch the Piglets!
Blow up small pink balloons and give kids fly swatters.
The balloons represent baby pigs that have escaped the barn, and children must use fly swatters to guide them back to a “barn” made from a large cardboard box.
Can they get all the piglets back inside before the timer rings?
This is great for developing eye-hand coordination.
12. Rubber Duckie Water Play
With a permanent marker, add numbers 1-10 or letters of the alphabet to the bottoms of the ducks for some water play.
As they float in the water table or plastic bin, children pick up one at a time, naming aloud the numbers or letters written on the bottom.
Added challenges: can they find the number for their ages or all the letters for their first names?
This simple activity helps build early maths skills.
13. Hen Nest Bean Bag Toss
For this bean bag activity, make several large hen nests out of straw, hay or raffia.
Standing a set distance away, children can try to toss the bean bags to land in the nests.
14. Cotton Ball Lambs
Making cute woolly sheep is a fun art activity that will develop fine motor skills.
Give kids plenty of cotton balls and liquid glue. They can glue the balls onto a background of construction paper and create woolly sheep.
Add googly eyes or colour with marker on several of the balls for eyes.
15. Name that Sound
Buy a CD of animal sounds, record them or listen to some farm animal sounds on YouTube:
Play them one at a time and see if kids can name them.
If they identify the animal correctly, they can then try to imitate how that animal moves.
16. Field Trip
Take children to visit a farm that has animals or to a petting zoo that includes typical farm-type animals.
They can compare what they’ve read in books to seeing similar animals up close and in real life.
After the field trip, children can draw pictures of the animals they have observed and possibly write short, commonly associated words: cow, moo, hen and pig.
A unit on farm animals ties in well with lessons on community helpers and themes like production and consumption.
Many picture books address the foods and non-food (fibre) products that come from farm animals.
On the other hand, when exploring farm animals for preschoolers, adults can also introduce the ideas of vegan (plants-only) farming and farm animal sanctuaries that are growing in popularity to offer a safe haven for injured or rescued farm animals.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these preschool farm activities.
Here is a collection of fun animal games for preschool kids, as well as more preschool theme ideas.
