Preschool Storytime: Farms
Introduction: This is one of the easiest themes because there’s so many fun books! To start, I told the kids we were going to put together a little puzzle to give us a hint on our theme. I had three pieces for the magnet board - a red square, a striped triangle, and a red rectangle with an x on it (the door). I pulled the red square out first and put it on the board. We talked about color and shape and I had them guess what it was going to be. Then I pulled out the triangle. They guessed it was the roof and I added it somewhere funny (upside down or on the side). They giggled about how clueless poor Miss Sarah was and I had them explain where it should go using descriptive language like above, and on top. We did the same with the door until we finished with a barn. Then I added animals and we sorted them from largest to smallest. This was a fun activity to work on our vocabulary, sorting, and shapes.
Book: Horseplay by Karma Wilson
Song: Old Macdonald Had a Farm. A few years ago, I took an old box, we painted it up like a barn, and cut some doors in it. I grab all of our barnyard puppets. Before we sing, I tell the kids that the animals will only come out if everyone sits nicely on their bottoms (otherwise the animals get scared) and if everyone sings along with me. I also tell the kids that the animals are shy, so in order for them to come out, everyone has to close their eyes, NO PEEKING. This gives me an opportunity to get the next puppet on my arm and ready to poke out. They love covering their eyes and you can see how excited they are. Then, we sing! As we announce the animal in the song, I pop the puppet through the doors and everyone squeals. After the verse, we say goodbye to the animals, I pull it back in and shut the door, the kids close their eyes and we do it again. I always end with the cow. He won’t come out when we sing, so the kids have to sing very loudly before he jumps out. Then he MOOS very loudly along with the song. After I pull him back in, he almost always pushes his head back through the door to surprise the kds. He’s a very tricky cow.
Book: Life-size Farm by Teruyuki Komiya. For this one, I don’t always read all of the words, but instead use it as a way to talk about all the different kinds of animals. Plus the gigantic photographs are awesome.
Song: I Know a Chicken by Laurie Berkner with shaker eggs
Book: Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox. This is one of my favorites because it’s so fun to really ham it up.
Goodbye Rhyme: My Hands Say Goodbye With A Clap, Clap, Clap
Art: We colored pigs and then I had them paint their pigs with brown puffy paint. Some of them drew other animals or barns in the background. They loved it!