15 of the best farm books and activities I've found

There are a lot of awesome children's books about the farm and farm animals, and there's no way I can talk about ALL of them - but here are some of my favorites, both old and new.

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Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle 
If you have preschoolers and have not yet met this book, you absolutely must find it!  The copy at our library is frequently checked out, because it includes farm animals and trucks - 2 all time favorites with the preschool crowd.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell
I love Farmer Duck for lots of reasons, not the least being the thankless nature of his tasks (no-one working with small children ever does thankless tasks, do we?).  I think the best part is that Duck answers with a single word every time he's called, "Quack!"  The kiddos love to join in and help me read/perform this one, and I love that!

Rooster's Off to See the World by Eric Carle
This is an oldie but a good one, any children's book collection should probably include something from Eric Carle's amazing list of titles!

Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming
Another artist whose work is always amazing, Denise Fleming does a lovely job of combining simple rhyming text, animal noises, and an easily found but sort of hidden goose on each page.  Little ones love finding the goose and of course, making the noises.

Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker
Perhaps this is actually a tour of some of my favorite children's book artists, because Keith Baker is another  whose art is amazing!  In each of his books there is something hidden on each page, in this case the word HEN is on each hen in the book.  If you have a child who loves combing the pages looking for hidden treasure, you'll fall in love with all of Baker's work.

Color Farm, by Lois Ehlert
Bold colors, cut outs in the pages, clever use of shapes - fantastic!  This would pair beautifully with the tangram activities I suggest further down this list!

Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
I first heard about this book from a child who had heard it elsewhere, and couldn't stop talking about it, for weeks.  Anything that engages a child that long is well worth checking out, and I was not disappointed!  Bonus feature, if you have students who blurt, or need to work on self control, this book is a gentle way to bring that to their attention in a fun way.

Pete the Cat Old MacDonald Had a Farm, illustrated by James Dean
You can't help but sing along with this song, and adding Pete the Cat makes just about everything better, right?  Do we cry? Goodness no!

Old MacDonald Had a Woodshop by Lisa Shulman
Old MacDonald is a woman in this book, and she has a fantastic set of wood working tools that make awesome sounds.  This one will easily be a class favorite for the great combination of the familiar tune and new sounds and motions you can make with it.

Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith.  Click here to watch a performance of the song that the book is based on - I don't know about you, but I think I need the printed words to make it all the way through!

Hedgie's Surprise by Jan Brett
Okay, this is definitely a tour of farm books by awesome picture book artists!  Like most of Jan Brett's books, this one is a slightly longer picture book read, and the illustrations are phenomenal!  I like to point out the action in the frames around the main picture - Jan Brett always includes extra information in these smaller illustrations - it's a great way to engage students further with the book, makes reading the pictures easier for the youngest kiddos, and shows that we get information in picture books from both the pictures and the words.  Working on narrative skills? Students can use these extra pictures to tell more of the story than the text alone provides.

Of course, no matter how many amazing books we read to our students, we also need great follow up activities!

I adore these mixed media cows - an idea inspired by this post (in French). I explain how we made them on our class' Artsonia page. This project lends itself to a discussion of squares, circles and rectangles, worked fine motor skills as we worked with scissors, crayons, watercolor paint and crayons and frankly looked awesome as a bulletin board!

We combined math, art and literacy for this next project:
I'm really happy that I recorded each child reading their page, and made a read aloud of our class book.  What a neat treasure to look (and listen) back on! If you haven't recorded your students reading yet, having them read their page of a class book is a simple first step - and with only a few words (which they wrote!) for each child to read, it feels more like an opportunity to show what they can do than a challenging task to complete.  Isn't that how we want our students to feel about reading?

A couple more ways I like to include math learning is with farm tangrams (see how I use them in this youtube video!)...

... and hands on math games.

If your students are beginning to read, you'll want some sight word rich text for them - maybe like this one that's available in my TeachersPayTeachers store:

Do you still need more ideas about the farm?  Check out my farm Pinterest board!  Thanks for stopping by!

Lowes Miniature Farm - Field Trip!

Today we had an awesome field trip! We went to Lowes Farm, just 2 miles from our school.  We had 4 wonderful family volunteers drive their children, so there was room in my van for everyone else - so we ALL got to go.

 We got to meet a lot of farm animals, starting with the babies: ducks!

 This bunny was named Cookie...she is so soft!

 We met both Wilbur and Charlotte the pigs - this is Wilbur posing with some of our friends.

 This silky is a rooster - and we heard a lot of roosters crowing, as well as the donkey braying and goats bleating.

 Peter Pan, the miniature horse, let everyone pat him too.

 Doodles the Donkey looked a lot like Peter Pan, but he sure sounded different!

 Everyone had a chance to throw feed to the chickens, turkey and peacock.

 We also fed the ducks...

 ... and the goats.  We found out that you have to hold your hands flat to feed the goats, so they can get to the food without nibbling on your fingers!

 Everyone had turns putting straw into the scarecrow, but he wasn't very scarey.

 Here we all are, eleven kiddos plus Ms. Paula and Ms. Julie.

 We played some farm games, and then finished up our farm trip with a hayride.  One of the kiddos told me the hay was itchy to sit on.

 We waved to all the parents as we drove by - the teachers were brave and went on the hayride, but our families chose to watch and take pictures.

 It was a beautiful day for a trip to the farm!  Thank you so much to the parents who drove and made it possible for us to all go, and to Mrs. Lowes for an absolutely perfect farm trip!

If you are in the DFW area, and want to share farm fun with your kiddos (field trip, birthday party, scouts or other group), please call Kathy Lowes at (817) 366-1561.  My kiddos loved it again this year, as they have for the 15 years we've been visiting.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we have!

Picking tomatoes and green beans

Earlier this week a neighbor asked if I would like to help pick their vegetables for a few days.  I love vegetable gardening, and wish I could get better results in my own, so I jumped at the chance to get in on some fresh ripe tomatoes and green beans.  I decided to take a few kiddos at a time with me, so they could also experience warm, sun-ripened tomatoes. 

I talked the children through the picking process, how to use one hand to hold the plant, and the other to gently pull the fruit, and of course, to place the produce gently into their picking basket.

 We looked for the reddest, ripest tomatoes, and left behind the yellow and orange ones (mostly).

The children were fascinated and thrilled at the experience of picking, even though they also noticed that it was work, especially looking for the hidden green beans.

Oh, and tasting!  I heard wonderful words from the children, like, "Can I eat one?" and "Can I eat another one?"

 They were so proud of their haul, which included 17 fair sized tomatoes, lots of beans, and a pile of cherry tomatoes - even after we'd eaten a bunch!

 Back at home I had them sort the produce.  They asked if they could take some home.  There was certainly enough!  Everyone chose one ripe, red tomato to take home, and we also set some aside for another friend, and put the beans away for lunch another day.

 One child decided to eat her tomato as she was leaving - and her loose tooth came out in the tomato!

I took other children on other days, and followed the same routine: showed them how to pick carefully without damaging the plants, looked for the ripest fruits, and enjoyed the calm of working in the garden together.

Look at their faces - the children loved this experience.  I had one child tell me later, "I don't like to eat tomatoes, but I like to pick them!"  It's a good start.

One of the children noticed the soft fuzz on the growing green beans - something that is long gone by the time they reach the grocery store, but that home gardeners everywhere are familiar with.

 There were also just a very few strawberries, but well worth looking for.

Can you guess where the strawberry is in this picture?

We loved the opportunity to explore the garden, to pick, and of course, to eat.

After several days of picking, we had an abundance of green beans - and a few purple beans from our own garden too.  We added them to our lunch on Friday, along with the cherry tomatoes, salted sliced tomatoes, and other, store bought ingredients.

We had also found some over ripe green beans,  ones that had escaped notice for a few days too long, and were no longer tender and crisp but rather well on their way to drying out.  The pods were yellowing, and the beans inside them were larger and harder than the ones we like to eat.

While they were eating, I handed out an over ripe pod to each child, and let them explore it.  We pulled the pods open, and found the beans inside were hard and had turned white!  They looked like "beans," as opposed to "green beans."

 We even tried eating the semi-dry beans!  They were different than the green ones, but still tasty.

The best news of all is that there are more green beans and tomatoes left, even after our feasting.  I'll freeze the beans, and cook up the tomatoes, and we can enjoy this haul of vegetables again next week. 

Oh yeah, I have awesome neighbors!