A farm thematic unit has so many opportunities to integrate learning across all content areas. Scroll down to see some of our farm-tastic activities and get a freebie!
We started our farm study with the realization that most of the foods we eat and the clothes we wear come from farms! We started a KWL chart and, as we did research and answered our questions, we wrote them underneath the post-it notes.
Next, we read some farm books to start our research. Reading A to Z has great informational books on different levels, if you have a subscription to the site. They also have information sheets you can print out. I also love Pebble Go for researching each farm animal.
Some big ideas we are covering in our farm thematic unit:
- There are different kinds of farms.
- Animals and plants on a farm
- Life cycles of plants and animals
- Crops grown depend on climate and location
- Farmers have many jobs
- We get lots of things from farms!
Our Classroom Farm
We set up a farm corner in our classroom. The children participated in painting and making the animals for our farm.
When students are in the farm center, they use a checklist to complete all the farmer’s tasks.
Here are some pictures that explain some of the sections.
#1: Farmers harvest the corn, carrots, apples, and write how many of each.
#2: Farmers harvest, count and package the strawberries from the patch (I made this using this fake snow mixture from Amazon.(affiliate link). I dyed the water green before mixing).
#3: Collect Henny and Penny’s eggs, count each, and find the total.
#4: Clean barn
#5: Drive the tractor
#6: Our class favorite- milk the cow
#7: Water the plants and spin 3 words
#8: Shear the sheep
#9: Make lemonade or strawberry pie, then write a how-to book!
#10: Draw and write about your experience as a farmer. I love this one! (“I had to pick up the cow and horse poop and pick up dirt.”)
More Farm Centers and Activities
Here are some more farm-themed activities and centers, in addition to our farm corner:
Farm Blueprints
Students worked in centers to design a farm, following a key to color in squares on a grid that represent items on their farm. A lot of collaboration, problem-solving and math went into this!
Farm Sentences– Students sort, then pick a card from each category to tell sentences orally, then write and illustrate them.
Farm Animal Writing– We read about farm animals and created charts interactively.
Since we are a Dual Language classroom, students also wrote about farm animals in Spanish!
Making Inferences- Students loved making inferences with my ‘Who’s in the Barn?’ PowerPoint slideshow.
Then, they made their own riddle!
Farm Math– Students use this mat to show addition with these double-dice. Get the farm mat FREE from my free resource library.
If they’ve sold out, you can use any types of counters.
Sticker or Stamp-a-Story– Just get these stickers from Michaels (or some colorful stamps) and have kids use some to label and write a sentence or story.
How cute is this little pig?
Spin-a-Word- I got the magnetic spinner from The Dollar Tree.
Farm Collaborative Posters
Word Work
Interactive Farm Mural
One of my favorite activities was creating this mural! We discussed what was important to have on our farm, then labeled a large paper with post-its, marking where everything would go. We discussed the placement of every single item in our farm, moving post-its to optimize farm space and make sure each location made sense. For example, the cows should be by the barn, the chickens by the chicken coop, and the corn field by the carrots and apple orchard.
It is slowly coming together as students read through farm books and add pictures and information to our mural.
As students learn about each item and make it for our mural, their pieces replace the post-it notes on our mural ‘ blueprint.’
Retelling Center
One of our favorite farm stories is The Little Red Hen.
We read it several times, then retold the story using these pocket chart pieces.
Afterwards, students sequence the story on this printable, and used it to retell the story to one another.
Students wrote their own play!
OK, kind of… as a culminating and end-of-year activity, we are inviting parents to a farm show. After reading different versions of The Little Red Hen, we decided to include Manana Iguana in our show. I wrote the narrator’s parts and kids worked in groups to write the character’s parts! They feel so proud for being a part of the production and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out at our show!
Students learned about and acted out the life cycle of a chicken, then labeled it and wrote a sentence. This is from my Labeling for Emergent Writers pack. Click here to preview: Labeling for Emergent Writers Bundle.
Students cut and pasted a farm scene, then used the picture word bank to write about it. From my Build it & Write bundle.
Credits
To help our farm unit, we used several resources from TpT. Here are some of my favorites:
Pocket of Preschool Farm Dramatic Play. Sooooo cute! This was made for pre-k but I was able to modify the ideas for kindergarten.
My Happy Place’s Farm Animal Babies mini-book was just perfect for learning animal mother and baby names!
My ‘Who’s in the Barn?’ PowerPoint for making inferences. It also has printables for creating your own Who am I craft.
In your freebie, you will find the farm animal mat and a writing activity. These are the farm animal counters I got from Amazon (affiliate links).