In the month of April we learn about farms and have lots of fun around a barnyard theme. Here are some of our morning activities at home throughout the past 4 weeks.
Nathan enjoyed board books about the farm including this large one with photographs of farm animals. He likes to hear what they sound like when we read.
Kaitlyn enjoys this vertical puzzle to get the chicken eggs down all of the different levels of the barn.
Here Kaitlyn unlocks the doors to the animal hospital with her set of color coordinated keys which she must match up in order to successfully unlock the compartments. There are different animals hiding inside of the kennels waiting for a checkup.
Dr. Kaitlyn checks them with her veterinarian set while Nathan feeds the animals… and himself.
Nathan decides to see what it’s like being a veterinarian. He is very interested in the stethoscope.
Kaitlyn puts together a pony puzzle with a little help the first time but all by herself several times after that. She is proud of her accomplishment.
“Uno Moo” is very fun for young children as well as the older children playing along with them. It is just like the card game only you match types of animals or colors of various farmyard animals and knock the previous animal in play into the barn. Your animals in hand hide behind the bale of hay that each person has and when you only have one animal left, you yell “Uno Moo”! Very easy… Very fun!
Nathan likes this activity table a great deal, probably because it makes lots of noise as he manipulates the different items. Sometimes he dances a pretty cute dance to the rhythm.
We make up silly stories with the farm similar to some books we’ve read where the animals try to trick the farmer into giving them pizza to eat for dinner or they pretend to be different animals they’re not. In our stories, the farmer may fall for giving pizza and bubble baths but he KNOWS which animal is which and cannot be fooled. Kaitlyn enjoys a few minutes playing with the Little People Farm in peace before her little brother comes busting in. I can relate.
Nathan carries the farmyard fence and the cow away.
Kaitlyn gets out the piggy bank and sorts the coins by size…
She counts them as she puts them in the bank. She has no trouble counting to 10 since she can almost count to 30 by herself without difficulty.
And she sorts them by color too.
Nathan gets a turn with the farmer and his tractor. Again, we enjoy the animal sounds.
So many nice spring days! We take the farm outside and play corn hole, tossing some homemade horse bean bags into a hand painted barn for points. Both of these are left over from a birthday party several years back. Only two horse bean bags remain since the kids at the birthday party liked them so much that I sent some of them home with the kids who wanted them.
They’re kind of goofy looking.
Kaitlyn also nests a set of farm animals; chicken, pig, lamb and cow. She is good at fitting them together, judging size and snapping them shut.
She is also interested in nesting and stacking a set of farmyard blocks. She has no trouble recognizing the written numeral as she nests so does not need to count the dots on the other side of the block like she did when she was younger.
Nathan isn’t quite putting puzzles together yet… he enjoys grabbing the pieces by the little red knob and taking them out. Usually he tosses them around and crawls through them so that there are puzzle pieces from one end of the room to the other by the time we are finished and sing the clean up song. Don’t forget to look under the couch or in the lego bin where he also likes to deposit them. It’s like a treasure hunt every clean up time.
Nathan holds some of the puzzle pieces in his fist here.
Kaitlyn does her work on the piano bench so that Nathan can still have freedom but can’t reach some of Kaitlyn’s materials. Here she uses rubber stamps to create a “Rebus” story as she recites a tale for me to write and she stamps on pictures throughout, in place of the words she wants. Silly…fun…creative…imaginative.
One rainy morning we played “Catch Me If You Can” with this purple rabbit. We tossed him back and forth and caught him lots of different ways.
Catching him this way probably made us laugh the hardest!
Kaitlyn occasionally relaxes with a good book in Nathan’s swing which she has not yet reached the weight limit for so it doesn’t bother me.
We sing all kinds of farmyard songs with actions, movement and/or flannel board. Here Kaitlyn sings “Bingo”. This is a favorite sung at the library during story time. Nathan loves the clapping part.
Nathan’s very most favorite song at the library or for Family Night or anytime really is “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
He claps his hands and stomps his feet for that one. Mr. Sam gets a real kick out of him doing that at the library with the “big” kids.
Nathan enjoys this tactile sensory activity cube. Each shape makes a different sound and has a different feel to it for both fingers as well as little mouths. The items also go in and out different ways in various sides of the cube. This was a great find years ago. I had wanted to buy this toy but at the time, this Discovery Toy was somewhere close to $20 brand new and out of my budget but I got it for $3 gently used about a month later and knew I had found a bargain. The lady checking me out tried to charge me quite a bit more for it but I put up a fight because I’d been quoted a $3 price tag already by her employee. I stood my ground; she was mad but I was thrilled. Another great thing about this toy is… when it needs a bath… into the washer it goes!
Singing time with the flannel board is better than TV for Nathan. We have just finished singing “Old MacDonald” and now he is pulling the animals off of the board. He’s got a tall reach these days. We usually scatter the animals around and collect them one at a time as we sing. Nathan’s favorite to find and hold is the farmer. We have several duck songs, frog songs, and piggy songs we sing as well. Do you know the song about the turtle with a bubble in his throat? It’s got a great big fun surprise ending that every young child I’ve ever met just loves. Nathan is no exception.
We’ve had lots of farm fun around the house and around town this month.
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