F is for Farm Preschool Unit

We just finished up our farm unit in preschool. It was awesome. I found lots of great ideas, and came up with a few myself. Altogether it made for 2 weeks of great preschool time. Here are some of the activities we did along with links to some of the printables we used.

Math Activities

• Sorting Animals- Farm Animal or Not?-  I collected a bunch of toy animals, some found on a farm and some not found on a farm. Sweet Girl sorted out which animals are from the farm and which aren't.
• Sorting Animals- This time I gathered a bunch of different farm animals and told Sweet Girl to sort them any way she wanted. She sorted them by what kind of animal they were, as you can see in the picture on the top right. We didn't have time to explore further that day, but there are lots of different ways to sort them.
• How Many Animals in the Barn?- I printed off a cute little barn and laminated it for durability. You can see it in the picture on the bottom right. Sweet Girl drew a number card and then counted the many animals into the barn.
• Cow Spot Counting- I used the blank cow printable from 2 Teaching Mommies. Sweet Girl rolled the dice and then counted out spots (black beans) to put on the cow.
• Farm Patterns- I also used the farm pattern cards from 2 Teaching Mommies. Sweet Girl sorted the pictures and then practiced making different patterns.
• Animal Size Sequencing- I used the cards you can see in the bottom left of the picture. They came from a great farm packet from Creative Preschool Resources. 

Literacy Activities

• Handwriting- We start each unit by introducing the new letter and practicing writing it. There are a million handwriting pages you can download, but this one is my favorite. It's free from Teachers Pay Teachers.
• Prewriting and Scissor Practice Pages-I found some great pages from the farm packet on Creative Preschool Resources.
• Play dough Letters- As seen in the top left corner, I drew a capital and a lower case F, and Sweet Girl made the letters out of play dough.
• Feather F- We talked about how chickens have feathers and feathers starts with the letter F. So I cut out a large F and gave Sweet Girl some feathers to glue on. You can see the finished product in the middle bottom.
• Colored Eggshell Name- I wrote Sweet Girl's name on construction paper and then helped her trace it with liquid glue and the cover it in crushed colored eggshells. 
• Hidden ABC Eggs- I placed foam letters inside plastic Easter eggs and hid them around the room. Sweet Girl went on an egg hunt to find them. When we opened them we named each letter and made their sounds. We didn't do every letter in the alphabet. I tried to pick some of the most commonly used letters and ones I know she still struggles with.
• Farm Animal Spelling- Also from Creative Preschool Resources, I found a printable of farm animal names. We used foam letters to spell the names out.

Other Activities

• Build a Barn- We used Mega Blocks to build a barn with spaces for the animals. (It didn't look very much like a barn, but it's the creativity that matter.)
• Animal Hand Print Pictures- We traced Sweet Girl's hand to make a cow. Her thumb became the neck and head and her fingers were the legs. We added a tail and used a stamp pad to make spots. We also made a sheep the same way, but instead of adding spots we glued on cotton balls.
• Farm Animal Puppet Show- We used some puppets I made awhile ago to do a puppet show. The pattern and instructions are from Just Another Day in Paradise.
• Animal Charades- I used this farm animal printable from Buggy and Buddy. We took turns choosing cards and then acting like the animal while the other guessed what we were being. I was surprised at how much Sweet Girl loved this activity.
• Farm Animal Memory- I printed a second set of animal cards and we played memory.
• What Come from Cows?- I cut out pictures of things we get from cows from a grocery store ad. We talked about each of them and the glued them onto the same blank cow pictures from the counting spots activity.

So there is our F is for Farm preschool unit. We had a great time. I hope this is helpful.