Tag Archives: farm

Farm Clean Up Sensory Play

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What’s Mila’s favorite part about spring, minus the flowers and nice weather? All the baby animals! This Farm Clean Up Sensory Play idea is a perfect way to talk about new baby animals AND have fun being messy too.

This interactive play was easy to set up and let her play for a long time. The best part… it’s completely edible too.

First, I want to say a HUGE thank you to Terra by Battat for gifting Mila these animals to play with. They have these big Bucket Sets full of different types of animals that are amazing. Terra by Battat sent us farm animals, marine animals, and a few other goodies that we love.

Their toys are super realistic and come in their own world. Mila has spent hours with both the buckets. The marine animals have became her favorite bath tub toys. I’ll be posting different ways we’re playing with them. You should still totally check Terra by Battat out though. Would make perfect Easter presents!

Anyways…

When I saw the country world bucket, I instantly thought of this fun sensory play. To further create this world, here’s what you’ll need:

The hardest part of this sensory play is the set up. It just takes a little time, but it’s worth it.

To set the scene, all you need to do is spread chocolate pudding in one part of your sensory tray. I also added some crushed kix cereal to make it look more realistic.

I also made sure to make the animals ‘muddy’ too. Honestly, I didn’t know if Mila would want to do that so it just made it a little more fun for me.

Then, I set up the cleaning area. This just consisted of a wash cloth, cleaning brush, and soapy water. It was nice doing the water in a bowl because Mila instantly thought it was a bathtub! Which works for me.

The next little area was where the animals dried off. I just used shredded paper and tissue paper.

After it was all ready for her, I just let her do whatever. When we do sensory set ups like this, I try not to give her too much direction. She immediately started cleaning off the animals.

It was so cute to listen to her too. She pretended she was a zookeeper and it was cleaning day.

After the first clean up was done, she made the animals muddy again and kept the process going. I loved watching how creative she was through it all.

I think this activity would have been even better outside with more space, but it worked well inside too.

The clean up for this activity was really easy too. All I did was recycle the paper. Then I just used water to clean everything else off. It was quick and simple!

I have a feeling we’ll definitely be doing this set up again in the near future. Until then, I can’t wait to show you the other fun activities we have planned with the marine world bucket. It was another hit with Mila.

Make sure to check out Terra by Battat and order realistic play animals that your kids will love.

What edible sensory play do you do with your kids? I would love to hear ideas.

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Preschool Activity: Farm Activity Box

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Another week, another activity box! This week’s activity box theme: FARM!

The last two weeks, Mila and her class have been learning about farms. To extend her learning about it, I thought some farm themed activities while she’s at home and when she’s off on Fridays would be fun!

This theme is also a ton of fun because we live in a rural area where a lot of people have farms and farm animals. We can go to different ones and actually see them. It was also a great time because we were just at our county fair where we saw all of the students’ farm animals and 4H projects that they worked so hard on. It was a way to be active while learning too!

Since we can’t go back to the fair or a barn every day, this activity box was perfect for her learning.

There’s a ton more activities you can do too, this just was easy for her to take to her grandma’s house on her day off.

I hope you love everything that’s inside. Let me know if you have other suggestions.

Books

I’ll never stop saying this: WE LOVE BOOKS!

Books help kids discover and learn about the world around them when they can’t get out and see it. Plus, it helps teach them lessons too.

These books are all ones that we’ve read so many times. I think Mila’s favorite is the farm sound. She’s had it since she’s been really little and it helped her learn different farm animal sounds. She also loves the Peek-a-Who and can even read it to me… more like look at the pictures and remember what it said.

We also love the Usborne “That’s Not My…” series and have almost all the farm animals. Sandra Boynton books are a big hit with Mila and this one always makes her laugh.

Lately, Mila has been obsessed with sheep, so The Sheep Who Hatched an Egg has been a new book that we’ve gotten. It’s a really cute book about sheep’s hair and caring about others. I’m unsure how super farm related it is, but Mila’s obsessed!

The Sheep Who Hatched an Egg by Gemma Merino

Farm Sounds by Usborne

Peek-a-Who? Are You My Mom? by Scholastic

Are You a Cow? by Sandra Boynton

That’s Not My Pig… by Usborne (we use all the ‘That’s Not My’ series with farm animals)

Painting and Play Dough

Painting and play dough are our two go to activities in our house. Mila loves them both and plays with them for a long time.

The farm animal ‘paint with water’ activity book from Melissa and Doug is a huge hit. There’s 20 different animal scenes that are perfect for learning about the farm! I also love that there’s paint on the top of every single page. It came with a brush too! All you need to do is a have a little cup of water and they’re good to go! Mila loves to paint, so I limit how many pages she does at one time!

I always include play dough in Mila’s activity boxes. They help her use her imagination in play and allows her to make shapes with her hands. I thought she might use the different colors to make animals, grass, and maybe just a farm scene. Who knows what she’ll create!

Matching Game and Threading

These two activities are Mila’s favorites!

The first are the threading boards. We got these from Mila’s preschool sale and they’re a blast to work with. It’s helped Mila’s coordination and motor skills. Plus, the scenes are so cute. There are a ton of threading activities that you can find on Amazon as well. This set (not pictured) is so cute and from Melissa and Doug!

Mila’s other FAVORITE game is the ‘grab it’ game. Essentially, you fill the red thing with the scare crow up with chips that have animals in it. When it’s your turn, you grab a chip and see if it matches to your board (the green barn). The first to fill their board up wins.

This game is so educational for us. Not only does it help with matching and animal recognition, it’s taught Mila to take turns and we practice animal sounds too. I found this game at Aldi, but you could make one too. Personally, I would use matching cards with farm animals and then have each player grab them from the deck. Essentially it would be the same thing.

These matching farm animal cards would be great!

Other Farm Fun Activities

Some of the other items that are in her box was her sheep that her great grandmother made, resin letters (of course), and a quick piggy clean up activity.

You could add any stuffed farm animal and multiple ones. At this stage, they really get into pretend play and it’s so cute to see.

As always, I’ll suggest to get a set of resin letters from Beags and Bubs. They’re the best!

The quick piggy clean up activity is a hit and doesn’t take too long to make at all. All you have to do is print out or draw a piggy. Then, put it in a ziplock baggy. When it’s in there, you just use black or brown markers to make the pig ‘dirty.’ Then, instruct your kiddo to clean the pig with a paper towel or sponge. They can also make the piggy dirty by drawing on it too.

I wanted to share two things Mila has done in preschool that I think would be a fun addition to this box as well. They’ve done a TON of other activities, but I thought these were just the cutest!

First is a story that Mila told her teachers and they wrote down. I actually love capturing her stories and recording them. It allows kids to be creative and see the importance of their words. Also, it’ll be so cute and funny to read when she gets older too!

I think she did a pretty good job!

This next activity was something that Mila talked nonstop about.

It’s a cut out of a big with brown paint. So, they got the pig dirty. I’m unsure what type of paint they used, but if I were to do this, I would probably put a drop of dish soap in the paint and mix it. This way it helps with clean up! Plus, what toddler doesn’t like getting dirty!

I hope you loved all these activities and items.

Let me know in the comments how you felt about this activity box! It was a lot of fun putting it together and watching her interact with it.

What activity box would you like to see next?