Last updated on March 7th, 2024
Preschool Farm Theme Activities
I love a good themed week of play and learning. And honestly? Choosing to go with a theme is actually LESS work for you than just choosing activities at random.
Hear me out.
Have you ever gone into the toy closet to do a toy rotation and just stood there staring at all of the toys trying to come up with what to pull out for the toy shelf? I know I have.
Or how about all of the time you’ve spent searching Pinterest for activity ideas, only to feel overwhelmed with all of the options out there? Yeah, me too.
Sticking to a theme is actually less work for you.
Going with a theme takes a lot of the guesswork (aka brain power) off of you. Instead, when you walk into the toy closet, you just need to seek out any (in this case) farm related toys and coloring books, and then move on.
It’s also easier to find free printables when you know your theme – you can simply search ‘free farm printables’ and then select which printables fit the skill set you are currently working on (like letter recognition, or beginning letter sounds, etc.).
There is one very important thing that you need to do when it comes to activities at home.
The first step in doing activities at home with your kids is planning them out in advance.
Imagine walking into a work meeting where you are the speaker and having no notes on your topic. Or going grocery shopping for the week with no menu or list. Now imagine those two scenarios, where you’re trying to concentrate extra hard due to being unprepared, and add a couple of rambunctious children running around at your feet.
Sure, you might be able to wing it, but odds are, it wouldn’t be pretty. I’d bet that it would feel chaotic and messy. No doubt about it, that there is an easier way: planning ahead.
So treat activities the same way. Just like you’d never show up to a work meeting unprepared, don’t show up to your kid’s learning hour unprepared. You’ve gotta be willing to put a little effort in beforehand so that your week runs smoothly with them. Have a plan. Know what you’re doing and lead the activity with confidence and purpose.
Plan your week using the same formula that I use.
- Choose a theme.
- Choose toys within your theme that will fill your play shelf.
- Choose one sensory bin activity.
- Choose a couple of arts/crafts activities that can be done without you for the most part (think busy work).
- Choose a couple of learning activities that can be done with AND without you (a combo of busy work and hands on learning together).
Let’s deep dive into this formula a little bit more.
Choose a theme.
When choosing a preschool theme, you want to choose a theme that is relevant to your audience (aka small children). Pick something that they can understand, something that is interesting to them, and something that will include ample opportunities for learning and reading high quality picture books.
Choose toys within your theme that will fill your play shelf.
I absolutely love the 6-cube shelves for use as toy shelves. They are lightweight so you can easily rearrange your playroom whenever you want, easy to clean (hello sticky fingers), and allow for maximum toy visibility (so long as you use the proper storage methods – which I’ll show you below).
It also makes toy rotation day easy to think of your toys in terms of choosing 6-8 toys, one toy per cube. I typically will put one toy per cube, a toy on the very top shelf, and sometimes a toy just next to the shelf on the floor, if needed.
When setting up a toy shelf, I like to stick with a few basics, no matter the theme:
- a handful of high quality picture books
- an open-ended building toy or two, like Magnatiles, Megabloks, Legos, Lincoln Logs, etc.
- a fine motor skills toy
- a puzzle
- a pretend play toy
- a few small manipulatives, like plastic animals, wooden people, etc.
I highly recommend following these easy guidelines when setting up your toy shelf.
You’ll see in all of these examples, I’ve avoided the large cube shelf square fabric baskets. Those may look aesthetically pleasing – but they hide all of the toys. And with kids, it’s out of sight, out of mind.
If they can’t easily see the toys, they are less likely to play with them. They are even less likely to properly clean up those toys – since it will be hard to remember where the rest of those blocks are when half are hiding in a big, dark bin.
I love these short woven baskets for loose toys, such as blocks or plastic figurines.
Choose one sensory bin activity.
It’s a lot easier to search online for ‘farm sensory bin’ vs. ‘sensory bin’. It narrows it down significantly.
Choose just one sensory bin activity and reuse that same activity all week long. We love our sensory bin table – it comes with tabletop covers so you can cover up the bins when you don’t want the kids to have access to them and open them back up when you are ready for playtime to begin again.
Choose a couple of arts/crafts activities that can be done without you for the most part (think busy work).
I like to use a combination of what I’ve got already and free printables. Things that I often will include are:
- coloring pages paired with crayons, markers, paint sticks, colored pencils, etc.
- color erase pages and magic markers
- do-a-dot pages
- water wow books
- play dough mats
You want these specific activities to be ones utilizing art supplies and ones that your kids can do without you. You’ve gotta balance 1-1 time with alone time.
Choose a couple of learning activities that can be done with AND without you (a combo of busy work and hands on learning together).
Here is where I’d choose some printables that are specifically geared toward hands on learning that can be done both with and without you. Things that I often will include are:
- color matching games
- shape matching games
- pattern predicting games
- number recognition and number sense games
- letter recognition and beginning letter sounds games
- color by number or letter pages
- pattern block mats
- puzzles
- and so many more!
Essentially, these are printables working on a certain skill (like number recognition). There are so many out there that make learning feel like a fun game.
Come take a look at our farm themed week.
Farm Themed Play Shelf
I included a farm animal puzzle, farm animal plastic figurines, farm themed books, a coin insert piggy bank toy, wooden blocks, a take-a-part tractor toy, and a plastic barn for pretend play.
Dried Corn Sensory Bin
For our farm theme week, we went with a simple corn sensory bin. This one is so versatile – we did a handful of different activities using the dried corn as our base. We’ve now been playing with it for 10 days and the kids are still not bored.
A couple of ways that we played with our corn sensory bin include:
- hiding plastic farm animals to find
- putting the plastic farm animals to bed in a muffin tin
- pouring corn into a muffin tin for an auditory sensory experience (it makes the coolest noise!)
- plain old scooping and pouring use measuring cups and spoons
- pouring the corn over our hands, burying our hands, touching the corn
- hiding a farm animal puzzle in the corn to find and put together
- filling the same farm animal puzzle’s wells with corn (without puzzle pieces in the wells)
- hiding piggy bank coins to find and put into the plastic piggy bank
Art Activities for Farm Week
I utilized come coloring pages we already had on hand and water wow on the farm. We also used the following free printables to aide in our farm week.
Farm Play Dough Mats by fun-a-day.com
Do-a-Dot Farm Animals by twopinkpeonies.com
Learning Activities for Farm Week
We used the following free learning activity printables too.
Farm Color By Letter from abcsofliteracy.com
Farm Animals Babies to Adults Puzzle by thestemlaboratory.com
Farm Tractor Color Matching Game by iteachtoo.com
Farm Animal Pattern Block Mats by lifeovercs.com
Farm to Table Sequencing Cards by preschoolplayandlearn.com
Chicken Coop Number Sense by totschooling.net
Farm Animals and Their Babies + TONS of Free Farm Worksheets from preschoolplayandlearn.com
Farm Color By Number by kindergartenworksheetsandgames.com
I hope these tips help you in your own home.
Whether you are doing preschool activities loosely and just for fun or you are doing them specifically for homeschool, I hope you found this post and the resources included within it helpful!
I’d love to hear how your own farm theme week at home went – let me know in the comments!
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