Ready, Set, Kindergarten! — Farm

I had 32 people today which doesn’t sound like many but was a new record for this program! I was so happy because this unit took a lot of planning and prep!

To start, I went over our mobile classroom items of the week (Color: Red [like a barn; Shape: Pentagon [because it’s kind of the shape of a barn!]; Letter: H; Number: 2 [like a mama and baby animal on the farm]. Our concept of the week was positional words. 

Then we started circle time:

Song: Days of the Week (to the tune of The Addams Family)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
There’s Sunday and there’s Monday,
There’s Tuesday and there’s Wednesday,
There’s Thursday and there’s Friday,
And then there’s Saturday.
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
Source: Ms. Brown’s Classroom

We looked at our calendar and discussed what day of the week it was, what month we were in, and what day of the month it was. Then we moved on to the weather:

Song: What’s the Weather? (to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine)
What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it sunny? Is it windy?
Is it rainy? Is it cold?

What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it snowy? Is it cloudy?
Is it stormy? Is it hot?
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/460563499387764713/

Then it was time for our theme discussion. 

Non-Fiction Book: Living on Farms by Allan Fowler

I read this book off of our big screen through BookFLIX. Then I talked a little about Pennsylvania’s agricultural products.

Fiction Book: Cock-a-Doodle Quack! Quack! by Ivor Baddiel and Sophie Jubb; illustrated by Ailie Busby

I went back and forth and back and forth about this book for this program. Would it be too juvenile? Were farm animal sounds too babyish for 3 to 6 year olds? Turns out, NOPE! All kids love farm animals sounds and they really liked this book.

Then we talked about the letter of the week. We talked about the sound H makes and some words that start with H.

Then I read our letter H book: Big Little Hippo by Valeri Gorbachev.

I read this book for my hippo story time last month and it was so cute I wanted to read it again.

Then we did our letter H craft. This is the same one I created for our Annual ABC project two years ago. 

Then I reviewed our centers. I made all the signs in Canva.

I filled the tray with salt and lined it with an image from Canva. The number formation rhyme is from Teaching Mama and the H is from Worksheets to Print.

The hippo, hawk, and husky came from various TOOBs (safari, North America, and Arctic, respectively). The helmet and hose came from the library’s Lego supplies. And I found the heart eraser in our supply closet as well. The foam letters came from puzzles I found at Dollar Tree. I created the tub labels in Canva.

I re-used our red play-doh from our Valentine’s Day session. I got the alphabet and counting mats from Oriental Trading. 

I got the idea for this sensory bin by combining ideas from Frugal Fun for Boys & Girls and Love & Lollipops. I filled our bin with a mix of popcorn and green lentils. Then I added in six farm animals and six zoo animals for the kids to sort on the appropriate mat. I put out tweezers for animal sorting as well as KEVA planks so the kids could make fences for the farm animals. I also added measuring spoons, a flower pot, and a plastic shovel. 

The bloggers were far more motivated than I am and each made hand-made barns to go in their bins which I would have loved to do but genuinely ran out of time!

I got this idea from Preschool Play. I created the images in Word using clipart. I was lucky that the county had linking cubes from Lakeshore Learning and that they were nice enough to loan them to me for our program.

I bought a scale on Amazon for this center. I think we’ll get good use out of it at future programs as well. I set out farm animals, popcorn, corn, lentils, and dried beans for the kids to experiment with. I also created an Exploring Weight on the Farm worksheet in Publisher for the kids to fill out. This center was a MESS when we were done but luckily everything was easily vacuumed up!

The foam frames are from Oriental Trading and were a huge hit. Some of the kids didn’t understand they could add their own picture so a lot of farm animals were the feature of the frame. 🙂

I created 10 flash cards in Canva:

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I used various animals, vehicles, people, and blocks from the library’s Duplo supplies for the kids to manipulate.

I wasn’t sure if they kids were going to like this one since it’s math-y. I was wrong, they LOVED it! I bought two rolls of farm stickers from Amazon (they’re actually from Oriental Trading but I have free shipping with Amazon!).

I got this idea from Life Over C’s. She was kind enough to provide the die for free on her website! I printed out two on card stock and used our hot glue gun to put them together. I created the graph and worksheet in Publisher but they were based on ideas from Teaching with Nancy on TeachersPayTeachers.

Our session summary:

I also handed out a letter/number of the week worksheet for them to color at home and practice their writing. I got the letter worksheet from Easy Peasy Learners and the number worksheet from Tot Schooling. And lastly as homework I sent home a simple math worksheet created by Rose Hascall at TeachersPayTeachers.

Next session: Bugs & Insects!