This document outlines lesson plans for a week-long farm theme unit for language arts, creative arts, and math skills for preschool or kindergarten children. Day 1 includes reading a farm story, drawing favorite farm animals, and graphing the class's favorites. Day 2 focuses on illustrations in books and a collage project. Day 3 includes felt board activities, composing barn animal books, and puppet making. Day 4 incorporates sequencing, counting, and sorting activities. Day 5 reviews books and includes tracing and singing. The plans provide structure while allowing flexibility for creativity.

1. DAY 1:
Language Arts (Reading and Writing):
Before reading any stories, ask the children what they know about farms (what types of animals
or crops, who has visited one, etc).
Take notes on the white board or flip pages.
Read the classic farm story The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown (this book is commonly
found in libraries)
Revisit the white board. Ask the children what they can add to the information now that they've
heard the story.
Provide the Farm theme word list to each of the children (you can do a vocabulary test on these
words later in the week or use them as a printing practice reference) and introduce the word wall
words.
Creative Arts:
Provide the children with blank sheets of paper and drawing materials or their favorite of the
farm animal mini coloring pages. Sheet 1 has a chicken, cow, horse and pig. Sheet 2 has a duck,
goat, goose and sheep.
Favorite farm animal mini coloring pages - with ruled lines for printing or writing [sheet 1]
[sheet 2]
Favorite farm animal mini coloring pages - with dotted standard block printing type tracers
[sheet 1] [sheet 2]
Favorite farm animal mini coloring pages - with dotted script type printing tracers [sheet 1]
[sheet 2]
Favorite farm animal mini coloring pages - just the image (no lines for printing) [sheet 1]
[sheet 2]
Have each child color or draw their favorite farm animal. Children learning to print can also
print the name of their animal on the page.
Math Skills - Graphing Favorite Farm Animals:
Have the children show their pictures of their favorite farm animal and share with the class
whether they have seen a real one (and if so, where).
On the whiteboard, keep a tally of the classroom's farm animal favorites OR have the children
hang their pictures on the bulletin board.
Pass out the Favorite Farm Animal Graph to the children
Favorite Farm Animal Graph
Have the children use the whiteboard tally marks or visit the bulletin board to make their own
tally sheet and fill in their graphs.
Review the graphs in front of the class and have the children self assess their work.
Ask the children if they know which is the most popular farm animal in the class based on the
results of the graphing exercise.
Staying Active - The Farmer in the Dell:

2. Outside or in the gym play "The Farmer in the Dell" -- this game can be played multiple times
during the week.
Lyrics
Children stand in a circle with one child (the farmer) in the middle.
When the "farmer takes a wife" the child in the middle picks another of the children to come
stand with them.
As each character "takes" another character in the song, all the children in the middle choose one
of the children from the center to join them in the middle.
DAY 2:
Language Arts (Reading and Writing):
Discuss with the class the roll of the illustrator (the person who makes the pictures in a book)
Brainstorm with them some different ways they make pictures (crayons, pencil crayons, paint,
etc)
Read Wake Up, Big Barn illustrated by Suzanne Chitwood (this book is commonly found in
libraries)
Discuss the pictures in the Wake Up, Big Barn book. How were they made? (collage)
Have any of the children made a collage?
What materials can you use to make a collage (magazines, old wrapping paper, tissue paper,
leaves, fabric, etc)
Reintroduce yesterday's story (The Big Red Barn) -- how was it illustrated? Who was the
illustrator.
Which method do the children prefer to look at? Which would be more fun to do?
You can expand on this discussion by sharing Barnyard Banter by Denise Flemming -- this is
easy to read and is illustrated using "pulp-painting" (created by pouring cotton pulp through
hand-cut stencils)
Creative Arts:
Provide the children with a blank piece of paper or with one of our collage outlines (from
simplest to most difficult):
Tomato
Crop Fields
Barn
Barnyard
NOTE: My 7 year old daughter enjoyed the barnyard but found it very challenging (it took her
about 1 hour to complete) -- she does a LOT of crafts. Please keep that in mind when picking a
project to do with a large group of children (the tomato may be your best bet)
Provide the children with glue, scissors and a wide variety of collage materials.
Examples:
pieces of wool, string, ribbon and raffia
cotton balls (great clouds!)

3. fabric scraps
tinfoil scraps
old magazines
old wrapping paper, construction paper or wallpaper scraps
tissue paper in various colors
felt or fun foam in various colors (you can get precut fun foam shapes with farm animals if you
like)
beans, popcorn, grains, uncooked noodles and rice
try scrunching up some of your materials or ripping it instead of cutting it.
Have the children "color" their designs by gluing on the collage materials
You can premake an example to provide inspiration for younger children
Math Skills - Estimation:
Fill a container with a given number of a farm related item (toy farm animals, unpopped popcorn
or kernels of wheat).
100 of the item is a good number
the container should be an appropriate size that the item nearly fills the container
show the container to the children and tell them how many of the item are inside
Fill a second, third and fourth container with the same item:
assuming you used 100 in the first container -- fill the second container with 25
assuming you used 100 in the first container -- fill the third container with 50
assuming you used 100 in the first container -- fill the fourth container with 150
NOTE: all of the containers should be identical
Ask the children to estimate how many are in the second, third and fourth containers.
Expansion: Fill different types of containers with 50 of the item. Ask the children to estimate
the item. Afterwards, discuss whether it was easier or harder to estimate the item when the
container was the same or different.
DAY 3:
Language Arts (Reading and Writing):
If you have a felt board: Print out the Farm Themed Felt Board printables in color and prepare
them as Felt Board characters. (If you do not have a felt board, you could prepare tack them on a
bulletin board instead).
Read Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Child's Play (or simply sing the song with the kids)
As the various characters come up in the story, hang up the appropriate felt board piece.
Hand out the Barn shapes booklets and have the children compose their own "In the barn there
was a _____" Book. If the children cannot print, hand out the pages that just require images be
drawn Barn booklet cover page color or B&W - one per child Barn booklet pages (one to

4. three per child) -- the children should draw a picture of their chosen animal(s) and print a
sentence about the animal
with lines for printing - children are free to make up their own sentence
with "In the barn there was a _____" - children simply print the name of the animal
drawing only - children draw the animal. No printing needed
Creative Arts (Coloring/Scissor Skills/Puppetry):
Print out the Farm Themed Felt Board printables in Black and White -- allow each child to pick 2
or 3 of the pages.
Allow the children to color in their chosen pages
Have the children use scissors to cut out the template pieces
Use scotch tape or masking tape to attach a popsicle stick or drinking straw to the back of each
template piece to make puppets.
Have the children get into groups of 3 or 4 children to cooperatively create their own puppet
show.
Allow the children to share their show with the class -- or if time is an issue, combine the groups
into two or three large groups and share their puppet show that way.
Math Skills - Classifying Items (counting by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's):
Set up three stations in the classroom:
Station 1: 10 all different items
Station 2: 5 sets of 2 identical items
Station 3: 2 sets of 5 identical items
Station 4: 10 all the same item
Items could be:
plastic farm animals, eggs, silk plants or vegetables (depending on what you have available).
If you don't have any of these available, you could print out farm animal coloring pages and hang
the appropriate number of those at the stations. [sheet 1] [sheet 2]
Divide your class into four groups. Have each group visit a different station. Have the children
talk about what they see at the station. Given the age of the children, you can have them print
their findings on a sheet of paper. For younger children, simply allow them to discuss what they
are seeing.
Come together as a classroom. Using the whiteboard, discuss with the class what they
discovered at each station.
Hand out farm themed "Connect the Dots" sheets (all of them, or just the ones your students are
ready for):
by ones
by twos
by fives
by tens
DAY 4:
Language Arts (Reading and Writing):

5. Provide the children with sentence sequencing cards and allow them to create some of their own
sentences (there are suggestions for use included with the templates).
Five Little Chickens felt board/poem -- mix counting, language arts and coloring
Farm themed mini books
Venn Diagram? of similarities between the books (especially focusing on the art?)
Farm ABC words
science: animal male, female and baby
science: ways animals are useful to people
math: sorting sizes
math: count the cow spots
DAY 5:
Language Arts (Reading and Writing):
Put out a variety of farm themed books (including the ones you read as a class throughout the
week) and allow the children to browse through them on their own. Depending on how many
students you have, you may need to put them in groups of two or three and have them read to
each other.
Print out farm theme tracer pages with whatever saying you wish. I suggest using a list of
spelling words or word wall words with a farm theme. For example:
barn farm pig
chick duck egg
cat cow horse
dog goat turkey
You can just cut and paste the lines above into the tracer page lines
Creative Arts (Singing):
Sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with the children, allowing them to take turns picking
animal/sound combinations