On The Farm

A farm is a very educational place! There are plenty of interesting animals to learn about, plants that grow, cool jobs, and dirt! All kids (well, most kids) love dirt! We are going to explore the happenings on a basic farm in this fun week full of lessons!

Farm Animal Flashcards!

CIRCLE TIME

Print out the flashcards above. Talk about a farm. A farm is a place where people called Farmers work their land raising different animals, such as cows and chickens, for food and also grow their own fruits and vegetables. They get up very early in the morning to begin working and they work very hard. All of their animals have to be fed and their living areas cleaned. Then the farmers have to milk the cows, collect the eggs from the chickens, and shear the wool from the sheep. Their plants must also be attended to. They have to water them amd pick the ripe fruits and vegetables when they become available. Often the farmers make their own furniture, tools, and clothing also! They are very busy.

What kinds of sounds do these animals make? Show them the flashcards and have them make the animal sounds!




LETTER:   Y  y for Yard

Y is for YES, YUM, YIPPEE, and YARD. Farms have Yards, Houses have Yards, even Schools have Yards.

Print the color sheet http://learning-years.com/coloring-pages/letters-numbers/ABC-123_coloring-030.htm

Talk about the sound that Y makes. Trace the letter with your finger, then with a crayon. Color the yard!






READING

Learning about LONG VOWELS can be tricky! This week we will continue to learn what happens when we add the "e" to the end of "short a" words. Review:

On Starfall.com: LONG vowel sounds! This week do the Long A lesson and story 
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f

On readingbear.org: also work on the long A sound, which is usually made by adding an E to the end of a word
http://www.readingbear.org/Presentation.aspx?PresentationID=68&Part=1


Activity

Index Card Book:  Add to your book this week by creating words that sound one way with a short vowel and no "e" on the then that will change to long vowels when we add the "e". Use words like "cap", "wad", "mad", "bath", "man", and "tap". Read the words without the silent e, then find out how the word changes when we add the silent e.



SCIENCE

Butter Making!

How is butter made? Or a better question is, how was butter made by farmers a long time ago? They made it in a butter churn. A butter churn was a big jug with a huge pole that agitated or mixed up the milk. You would pour the fresh cow's milk into the jug, close the lid with the pole sticking out, and push and pull the pole up and down really quickly. This motion causes the fat in the milk to stick together. After a while, all the fat will be stuck together and that is what we call butter!

Materials Needed:

Baby Food Jars with Lids
Whipping Cream (full fat)

Pour whipping cream into the jars so that they are about half full. Place the lids on the jars TIGHTLY! Have everyone shake the jars as hard and fast as they can. More than likely they will tire out before the process is done. It might be a good idea to only provide 1 jar for every 2 or 3 children so they can take turns. After roughly 15 minutes, you will have butter! (see the Music section for the "making butter boogie") For better flavor, add a little table salt to it.

**Save the butter for the cooking activity later!

ACTIVITY

Act Like Farm Animals

This is fun and easy! Gather the children and tell them to act like a cow! Allow them to do this for a minute or 2 and then act like pigs! Continue on with this activity as long as they are interested.



COMMUNITY

Farmers

Farmers are very hard workers! They are up really early and go to bed late. There are many different kinds of farmers. Some produce crops, or fruits and vegetables. Some raise animals such as cows, sheep or pigs. Most of the fruit, vegetables and meats that we eat are grown and raised by farmers. Their crops can also be used to make our clothing, paper, and many other things. Farmers are very important people!




MATH

Math Mats

Print these math mats from Prekinders.com! They are really cute. Provide some white and yellow playdough and have the kiddos make baby chicks to put in the farm yard. The number of chicks they should make is listed on each mat. For a tougher challenge, mix the mats up so they aren't in numeric order.

http://www.prekinders.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/farm-counting-mats.pdf






Farm Animal Patterning

Print this pack from havefunteaching.com. This is a terrific patterning lesson using very cute farm images.

http://havefunteaching.com/worksheets/themes/farm-worksheets/farm-sequencing-activity.pdf







ACTIVITY

Mommy animal and Baby animal Matching

Mommy & Baby Matching Cards

You can print the above cards and use for a few different games!

You could play a basic Memory game where you mix them up and turn them face down on the table. Have each child take a turn turning over the cards 2 at a time to try to match a mommy to a baby. Once they have found a match, remove those cards.

You can print out enough copies for each child and cut them out. Mix them up and have the kids make matches on the table. You could even have them glue them to a piece of construction paper in pairs.

You could even just hold up a picture of a mommy animal and have the kids find the matching baby.

ART/CRAFT

ART-Yarn Collage

Materials Needed:
Construction Paper

Lots of strips of yarn in multiple colors
Glue (white school glue works best)

This is an art project so there is no real goal! You can explain that we are using yarn because it is like the fiber farmers weave from Sheep's wool. (That is how we are tying it in to the farm theme) Allow the kids to pull whichever and however many pieces of yarn that they want and glue them to the paper. They could make a pattern, but more likely it will look like a big pile of mulit-colored spaghetti when they are done. Free art expression is a great thing for their little minds and is also great for their fine motor skills.





CRAFT - Hand Print Sheep

Crafts are generally more goal oriented. They are trying to reproduce something, but in their own way.

Materials Needed:
Black Paper

White Paper

White Chalk

White Cotton Balls
Glue

Begin by using white chalk to trace each kid's hand onto the black paper. Make sure their fingers are spread out wide! Cut them out.

Give the kids their handprint, a piece of white paper, a pile of cotton balls and glue. Ask them to glue their hand print to the paper. Show them that their thumb will be the head of the sheep and their fingers are the legs. You can even draw a little face on the thumb to help them see it! For even more fun, use googly eyes.

Next have the kids glue cotton to the body of their sheep. When they are done and dried, hang them up around the room.

BOOKS

On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/House-That-Built-Barefoot-Paperback/dp/1846860512/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369326597&sr=1-3&keywords=the+house+that+jack+built

This is a fun, repetetive rhyming book that is a delight to read!




On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Barnyard-Banter-Denise-Fleming/dp/0805087788/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369326682&sr=1-1&keywords=barnyard+banter

A really fun and interactive book  in which everyone can have fun making farm animal sounds!



MUSIC


Making Butter Boogie!

You can sing this while making the butter in the Science lesson!

Shake it UP, shake it DOWN
Shake it, shake it all around
Shake it HIGH, shake it LOW
Shake it, shake it to and fro
Shake it over, shake it under
And pretty soon, you will have BUTTER


Old MacDonald Had A Farm

A classic! Find it HERE. The link has the lyrics, the music to download and even a video! Have fun

COOKING

Farm Foods!

The idea here is to have a few items that people on farms can grow and make themselves!

Ingredients:

Bread (homemade is best, but not always feasible)

Butter (the stuff you made in the Science lesson)

Strawberries, apples or other fruit from a farm

Eggs

Milk

You might want to schedule this for breakfast time! Talk about how all of these things come from the farm. The farmers make their own bread using flour, salt, etc. You know how to make butter! Strawberries, apples, and other fruits are grown on farms. Eggs come from chickens. Milk comes from cows.

In order to get them involved, allow them to butter the toast and use plastic butter knives to cut strawberries. Serve the kids some scrambled eggs and a glass of milk also! A full farm-made meal.

(You could also serve bacon or sausage and talk about how it comes from pigs if you feel comfortable opening that can of worms!