If you want to introduce your toddler or primary students to farm animals and vocabulary, these farm activities will save the day! Personally, I love a hands-on, engaging activity to get my students and my daughter interested in learning. With that in mind, I went searching for activities and materials I could use to help students learn farm vocabulary.
PS. I wrote another post about farm books that are great for introducing new vocabulary. You can read that blog here.
Here is the ultimate farm activity guide!
*Note – this post may contain affiliate links, though I do always encourage shopping local!*
Sensory Bin
If you know me, you know how much I love a good sensory bin. Sensory bins are a great way to engage students in fine motor skills, play based learning, and so much more. Of course, I have to make a sensory bin farm activity!
I created this Farm sensory bin that gets kids engaged in farm vocabulary through various activities, letters, counting, identification, and more. Here are a few of the activities I created for this sensory bin:
- Feed the animal the correct amount of food (counting)
- 36 letter and sound cards to trace letters (letter formation)
- 3 farm booklets with matching photos (vocabulary)
- Sheet with several colors and various colored barns to match (color identification)
- Tracing activity to connect words (fine motor skills)
- Matching animal shapes to shape mats (shape identification)
….and much more!
Cooking and Recipes
While learning about farming, it’s likely you might want to do some cooking! I want to share some ideas for cooking farm activities. The awesome thing about cooking is you can also incorporate measurement, counting, procedures, and more!
Cookies – If you are short on time, find some farm themed cookies at the grocery store. I recommend those sugar cookie doughs you can buy with the picture in it. Pilsbury has Easter chicks, and Annie’s makes a farm animal dough.
Farm Fresh Foods – If you are feeling more adventurous, eat farm foods only for a day! These might be items from the produce section, your personal or neighborhood garden, or a farmer’s market. For example, you can have eggs, toast, bacon, and orange juice for breakfast. For lunch, have a salad or sandwich. Talk about where the ingredients come from while you make your meal.
Cute Farm Recipes – There are also lots of adorable farm themed recipes out there. You can have rice crispy treats as hay bales, fill a ziploc bag with popcorn and wrap it in green tissue for corn, or create a piglet from a rice snack, pink yogurt (or frosting), strawberries, banana slices, and blueberries.
Reusable Stickers
Extend farm vocabulary through stickers! This play based learning activity is fun for kids, and you can continue to add in multiple skills. I got my farm stickers from Melissa & Doug on Amazon. Here are a few ways to play:
- Count the animals
- Design a farm
- Give them a specific number of items to place on their farm
- Name the animals and tools
Stickers can get a little crazy, so make sure you set clear expectations, so you don’t end up with walls covered in stickers!
Dramatic Play
Dramatic play is one of the best ways for kids to learn about the world around them. For this activity, you will set up an imaginary farmer’s market. Kids can use a shopping list to guide their trip to the farmer’s market. They’ll fill a basket with farm fresh goodies and check out with the cashier. They can also fill out an order form and the farmer will fill their bag with produce.
I made a resource that contains everything you need for this dramatic play. It includes a welcome sign, open, and closed sign, labels, produce price tags, today’s special sign, order form, shopping list, money, and all printable produce.
If you have fake produce that you can use for this dramatic play, then that will also work! This is the set of produce I use with my daughter.
Trip to the Farmer’s Market
Honestly, who doesn’t love a trip to the farmer’s market? After exploring these various farm activities, taking your class or child to the farmer’s market is a great way to let them experience it all themselves! Let them explore the produce, food, and items people sell, and make connections between what they have learned and real life.
I hope these ideas give you a great jumping off place to create your own engaging farm activities with your child or students.
