Simple Farm Sensory Play

It’s farm week at Discover and Explore! There are so many unique ideas for playing and learning about farms. I can’t wait to see what everyone has to share in this week’s linky. We’ve combined some of our favorite books about farms with some simple sensory play. These one-ingredient bins are super easy to set up and they encourage a lot of open-ended sensory exploration.

FIND ALL OF OUR FARM ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

FOR HOME PRESCHOOL AND PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

For this series of activities I chose to follow a pattern of reading a story and then introducing one new bin at a time. You could certainly leave all of the bins out for open exploration, but I wanted the kids to take time individually exploring each bin.

As you consider setting up your activities you may also want to consider whether you are going to let the kids mix the bins or you want them to keep the materials separate. We chose to keep the materials separate, so even after all bins were introduced I placed them in separate locations around the room to prevent them from getting mixed together.

Farm Books

There are so many great books to go along with a farm theme, so you could really choose many many different versions to go along with each bin. I tried to choose a lot of rhyming texts that invited the kids to participate and join in the stories.

We introduced our black bean “mud” bin after reading Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud. This books is a silly story full of rhyming and alliteration. You could also use real mud, coffee grounds, dirt, or black paper shred to represent mud.

After reading Down by the Cool of the Pool we introduced the blue aquarium gravel “water” sensory bin.  This is another fun rhyming text about animals dancing and singing down by the farm pond.

Chicken Big was the inspiration for our “corn” sensory bin. This story is a silly twist on the story Chicken Little.

We introduced our cotton “wool” bin after reading No Sleep for the Sheep! The kids couldn’t help but join in making animal noises as one animal after another joins in the story and keeps poor sheep from falling asleep.

Before introducing our “green pasture” split plea sensory bin we read  Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, Creak, Pop-Pop, Moo.  In addition to being a really cute way to talk about onomatopoeia, the book is another fun rhyming text that introduces kids to the sights and sounds of a traditional day on the farm.

We read Horses: Trotting! Prancing! Racing! to introduce our final “hay” sensory bin. Another rhyming text, this book is full of information about the different roles horses play on a farm and in the community.

Sensory Exploration

Now that Little Buddy is getting bigger he is eager to join in with even more of our activities. This collection of sensory bins kept him happily exploring for quite some time.

He’s deep into the scooping, pouring and dumping stage, so he was mesmerized by the sounds of the aquarium gravel falling into the bin over and over again.

Tinker is enjoying more and more pretend play these days, so she was the first to grab some farm animals from our collection of Safari Ltd. Toob animals.

Lovey got even more elaborate with pretend play as she set all of the bins side by side and created her own farm complete with farmers and animals that lived in each separate bin.

The girls enjoyed the bins so much that they asked to move the whole collection downstairs to continue playing even after our school day was over. They even had a mini monster truck rally in the mud bin. All of the bins remained out and were well-used for almost a week before we re-purposed them into something else.

You can find even more farm activities on my Farm Theme Pinterest Board.

GET A FULL WEEK OF FARM THEME LEARNING AND PLAY

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This farm theme pack includes editable lesson plans and hands-on activities for a week full of math, reading, & science learning activities about farm animals and farms. It makes a great fall or spring theme for preschoolers. Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:

1) Upper and Lowercase Barn and Animal Letter Matching Set
2) Barn and Animal Counting Activity (Numbers 0-35)
3) Duck Dice Game
4) Mud on the Pig Counting Game
5) Farm Animal Number Cards (Numbers 0-35)
6) Baby and Adult Farm Animal Matching Cards
7) On the Farm Homemade Book Template
8) Farm Rhyming Activity
9) Farm Sorting by Size Cards
10) Farm Picture Cards
11) Farm Word Cards

GET YOUR LESSON PLANS

Home Preschool Farm Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Farm Theme Lesson Plans

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