A barn is usually found on a farm.

These special buildings are mostly used for housing animals, storing grain or hay, or keeping equipment.

This open-ended activity enabled our students to construct their own barns.

We first used red blocks (placed on green rice which simulated grass), and then red panels.

Before beginning, students learned that if it’s cold or raining, the barn is a safe and dry place for the farmer’s animals to sleep.

The concept of a barn is central to our farm theme, so it was important that your little one use a variety of materials to create their own version of it!

To further incorporate the many uses of a barn, we also read a story about how a barn is used to store supplies such as grain and hay. Lastly, we sang a song about the color red during circle time because barns are red!

From the cow to the carton, creating milk is a high-tech process.

In factories, milk goes through a series of stainless steel pipes to large refrigerated vats and is stored at 4°C. Within 48 hours, sterile refrigerated tankers take it to the milk factory, where it’s pasteurized and homogenized at the same time.

But, how did we get the milk from the cow to the machine? This activity aimed to teach your little one just that. After watching a short video on cow milking, we created our very own dairy farm here at school!

This was a great way to teach your little farmers about cows and where milk comes from. Preschoolers learn best by doing, and they milked a cow, just like a farmer would.

Using a large picture of a cow, rubber gloves and white paint, we milked our cows, letting the paint fall onto the ground.

Having young children work together as a large group can prove to be a very positive experience.

Together they communicate and create.

As a result, they cooperate and collaborate!

It is this reason that we combined a group project with a dramatic play activity.

For this, we painted some large boxes red, and then turned them into barns!

This dramatic play experience helped your little one integrate all they have been learning about barns and farm animals.

This type of play is an integral part of the developmental learning process by allowing children to develop skills in such areas as abstract thinking, literacy, and social studies, in a timely, natural manner.

Farms play host to an array of adorable animals.  These creatures provide a rich texture of color that adds to the intrigue of the daily workings of a farm. During circle time we discussed the roles of these animals, and concluded the morning with a fine motor experiment!

Using brown watercolor, pipettes, and pictures of pigs, we observed how color can be manipulated with different instruments.

As it is sucked into the pipettes and dropped onto the paper, it quickly spreads onto the surface of the paper fabric.

Your little scientist not only practiced their fine motor skills, but experienced the benefits of cause and effect 

Farm themes are always popular with preschoolers, because they easily incorporate so many of their favorite activities: pretend play, sensory, small worlds and more!

We love it too because we can really think outside of the box with the activities and provocations we present to your budding farmers.

One of our farm days focused on sheep, sheep farms, and the wool they provide for us.

Your students were taught that the sheep’s wooly coat gets a haircut with clippers; the same way their daddy or maybe they might get a haircut!

They learned that the special clippers used on sheep are called shears, and it is called shearing a sheep when a farmer gives a sheep a haircut.

After learning all about sheep we put together an activity where the children could pretend to be farmers and shear some sheep themselves. We used shaving cream, balloons, and a large craft stick to “shear” our wooly friends.

Using black stones, we learned about dairy cows, counting, and numbers!

Each child was given a group of white dairy cows with various numbers written below them. They then placed the correct number of “spots” onto each cow, counting as they did so.

After this, we talked about what the various numbers look like.

By counting, young children gain an understanding of concrete relationships.

By counting, our students also learn that each object gets one number. In gaining insight of concrete relationships, they further their comprehension that things continue to exist.

Young children experience a great sense of accomplishment when they learn how to distinguish between different amounts.

By noting differences in numbers, they are building a foundation for more complex mathematical thinking.

Using picture diagrams, we practiced sorting and counting some of our favorite farm critters!

There were two categories: animals with two legs, and animals with four legs. Each student placed their creatures under the correct number after counting the number of legs.

This was a really entertaining science activity meant to teach your little farmers that corn has multiple uses! With a few steps, we made popping corn become HOPPING corn!

This corn hopped up and down repeatedly in each container for over an hour.

It’s so much fun to watch (mesmerizing would be the best word to describe it) and it created a great opportunity to talk about gases, liquids, and solids with your budding agriculturalists. Each child first filled their jars with water and added a couple drops of food coloring.

They then added baking soda and stirred until it was all dissolved. Following that, we added a small handful of popping corn kernels. Lastly, we added the vinegar and watched the corn start to hop up and down!  The science behind the activity is that when the baking soda and vinegar combine, they react to form carbon dioxide (CO2) gas.

The gas forms bubbles in the water which circle around the corn kernels.

The bubbles lift the kernels up to the surface and when they get there they pop and the kernels sink again.

The “hopping” continues until the vinegar and baking soda have finished reacting. For us, it lasted over an hour!

We not only learned about the history of corn, but its anatomy, how it grows, and most importantly, how to eat it! Using our fingers, we removed the husks from sweet corn, cooked it, and ate it for snack!

When children are involved with food experience and food preparation, they are more interested in trying it.

Husking corn gives children an opportunity to see how corn looks when it leaves the field.

They are learning that corn simply does not come out of the freezer or a can off the shelf.

It is an opportunity to touch, see the husk of the corn kernels, and hear the snap and crackle of the corn husk as it is pulled off of the ear.