A Little Bit Of Help Please

[MsLaura529]

Ok, so ... I know I ask these things a lot, but I LOVE hearing/seeing what other providers have done and had great success with. I have some ideas (thanks to pinterest and just things I have thought of on my own), but it's always helpful to hear about what your have done

We are finishing up our camping theme next week, and after that we will be doing Down on the Farm. I'm hoping I can stretch this out to be a couple weeks long. I will have 3-5 kids, ages that I have will be 20 months - 4.

Some ideas that I have so far are:
Songs - Old MacDonald, BINGO, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Take Me Down to the Farm
Sensory Bin - Corn Kernels (where could I get these from?), hay, little farm animals, cotton balls
Game - "Who Am I?" with picking a car from the pile and making that animal's sound, and then everybody guesses.
Crafts - Black sheep (cotton ball painting), Paper plate cow, Pudding painting muddy pigs, Duck pond (they love to glue paper, so I will have yellow shapes cut out that they will glue onto a blue piece of paper).

Is there anything else that you guys have done for a farm theme?

[Brooksie]

Ok, so ... I know I ask these things a lot, but I LOVE hearing/seeing what other providers have done and had great success with. I have some ideas (thanks to pinterest and just things I have thought of on my own), but it's always helpful to hear about what your have done

We are finishing up our camping theme next week, and after that we will be doing Down on the Farm. I'm hoping I can stretch this out to be a couple weeks long. I will have 3-5 kids, ages that I have will be 20 months - 4.

Some ideas that I have so far are:
Songs - Old MacDonald, BINGO, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Take Me Down to the Farm
Sensory Bin - Corn Kernels (where could I get these from?), hay, little farm animals, cotton balls
Game - "Who Am I?" with picking a car from the pile and making that animal's sound, and then everybody guesses.
Crafts - Black sheep (cotton ball painting), Paper plate cow, Pudding painting muddy pigs, Duck pond (they love to glue paper, so I will have yellow shapes cut out that they will glue onto a blue piece of paper).

Is there anything else that you guys have done for a farm theme?

Do you have a local tack and feed store? They probably have something like that there.

[butterfly]

instead of corn - if it's hard to find, I'd use beans. Corn and beans are big crops around here.

Love your ideas!

We also play a memory game with "haystacks". We hide small objects under a 1/2 of a plastic easter eggs. - I chose yellow eggs to make them more like haystacks.

Corn cob painting - roll cob in paint and let the kids roll them onto paper, or cut into 1/2 and let them stamp with the end.

Potato painting - same concept as corn

tractor painting - roll/drive the tractor through paint and then roll on paper

I get library book as on the farm animals.

Ask the kids to bring an item to show and tell that's farm themed.

Egg carton games - use egg carton similar to mancala - use it for sorting shapes or colors

make patterns with animals or farm equipment

sequencing or matching of calf to cow, lamb to sheep, etc.

[butterfly]

could also use bird seed... sunflower seeds or millet, etc all farm crops.

[butterfly]

We also sing wheels on the Tractor - just like wheels on the bus, but using a tractor instead.

[MrsSteinel'sHouse]

Ok let me think.. I am thinking it has been a while since I have done a farm theme.
I love the book "Click Clack Moo". I have a real typewriter and let the kids check it out. Stamp letters "like the typewriter".

I have Going to Sleep on the Farm

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Sleep-Wendy-Cheyette-Lewison/dp/0803710968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376068378&sr=8-1&keywords=going+to+sleep+on+the+farm

I get out the animals from my play animals and the kids like putting them to bed with the story.

Painting with straw is fun.
I have farm animal beads that we string and make patterns.
I have several folder "games" that fit with the farm theme. I am sure you could find some on pinterest.

Oh the book "Tops and Bottoms" ! Talk about what grows above ground and what grows below. Make Tops and Bottoms soup (veggie soup) Carrots, potatoes- bottom, corn peas etc top.

That is all I have off the top of my head right now...

[MsLaura529]

You ladies are awesome! They've just started really liking the different games we can do, and I like being able to have them set up in different "centers" after introducing them to the kids (like this week I had Counting Fireflies on the magnet board and ABC fishing) ... it's been making free play time a lot more enjoyable this week.

What would all of the different verses for Wheels on the Tractor be? We did a " The Waves in the Ocean" for our ocean theme back in May ... the kids are still singing it, haha.

[butterfly]

You ladies are awesome! They've just started really liking the different games we can do, and I like being able to have them set up in different "centers" after introducing them to the kids (like this week I had Counting Fireflies on the magnet board and ABC fishing) ... it's been making free play time a lot more enjoyable this week.

What would all of the different verses for Wheels on the Tractor be? We did a " The Waves in the Ocean" for our ocean theme back in May ... the kids are still singing it, haha.

The wheels on the tractor.... all through the field
The wipers on the tractor....
The farmer on the tractor goes up and down (bumpy field ) (or the bucket on the tractor goes up and down...)
The engine on the tractor goes vroom...
The lights on the tractor go on and off...

One of my kids actually wanted to change it to tractor when we sang wheels on the bus. His dad is a farmer... so we just made up some verses that kinda worked with the theme...

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

Cottonballs on a sheep, feathers on a chicken outline, hay on a barn were things that were mentioned here before.

[Josiegirl]

When I did a farm theme, it went something like this:
Monday- Circle Time we sang Farmer in the Dell and Old McDonald. Kids picked animals and acted them out, we talked about farm animals and what their babies are called, discussed what we get from each of them. We talked about sheep, their wool and what we can make from it. We made sheep(using cotton balls), read The Big Red Barn.
Tuesday-Read The Cow That Went Oink, added black spots to our plain white cows to turn them into Holsteins. Then we rigged up a 'cow' using chairs, a broom, plastic gloves and pretended to milk the cow(wearing cowboy hats of course). Had a box filled with black and white items, also checked to see who was wearing black or white that day. Made butter using cream and lots of shaking(we eventually gave up and used the mixer. )
Wednesday- Sang If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands(must've started off with a grumpy day that day haha). Rounded up toy tractors and farm animals to paint with, then made baby chicks using our footprints. We played 'in the mud' using shaving cream and brown paint(again using tractors/farm animals).
Thursday-Song was The Cows on the Farm(sung to the Wheels on the Bus) and Here We Go Round The Big Red Barn. We made Indian Corn pictures using bubble wrap. We made Pumpkin Fluff Dip, serving with graham crackers for snack. Then one of our dcf's brought in their bunny for the day.
Friday-Made scarecrows using lots of shapes the dcks cut out.