Thursday, April 30, 2009

Farm Unit!

Our Theme is the Farm!Project Handprint Rooster - I found the idea for this project on the website http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals.htm under the animal link and then the bird link. This site even provides templates for you to print, but it is an easy project to do without a template. Materials needed: white card stock or paper, red paper, yellow paper, large Popsicle sticks, glue and googly eyes.
I traced Connor and Lauren's hands on red card stock (for the wattle and crest) and cut them out. I cut out two small triangles for the beak on yellow card stock. (The template provides the triangle and circle) I cut out the circle head on white card stock. Connor and Lauren glued one of their hand prints on the top of the circular head and the other on the bottom of the head. Then they glued the yellow triangles on the side of the head and finished it off by gluing on a googly eye. Finally, I helped them glue their rooster head to the large Popsicle stick. They had fun doing puppet shows with their rooster.

Project - Farm Animal Counting - I created a grid style sheet with the numbers 1-5 on the edge of each row. I printed off pictures of farm animals and cut them to fit the squares of the sheet. Connor and Lauren then had count the farm animals and glue them in the matching row. This activity emphasizes counting, one-to-one correspondence. I adapted this activity from the website http://www.pre-kpages.com/farm.html
You can also print the counting grid sheet off of the website under the Farm theme page.

Project - Farm Animal Poem - I created a sheet with farm clip art a border and the poem I am a ______(type of farm animal) I can ______ (movement) I can________(sound) I feel________(texture) I smell______(scent) I am_______(emotion) I am a ______(animal again). Then Connor and Lauren drew a picture of their animal on the top half of the sheet. I got this idea from the website http://www.prekinders.com/farmunit.htm under the link for the themes/farm.







Project Old MacDonald Farm Animal Book! - I created a Cover for the book by finding a clip-art picture of a barn. I printed it as a full sheet and glued to a piece of construction paper. Then I made the pages to the book by adding farm clip-art a border and typing the song "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" leaving out the animal name and the animal sounds. I let Connor and Lauren choose their animals each day (We did 1 page each day for a total of 3 pages in the book). Then at the bottom of each page underneath the song, they drew a picture of their animal. At the end of the week. I added a back piece of construction paper and I stapled all of the pages together to make a book! Connor and Lauren loved reading and looking at their books! I got this idea from the website http://www.prekinders.com/farmunit.htm under the farm theme


Project Farm Counting Book- I created pages for this farm animal counting book and then glued them onto construction paper and stapled the book together. The title of the book was On the Farm. The first page said, I see _____ cow on the farm. The second page said, I see _____ turkeys on the farm. The third page said, I see _____ pigs on the farm. The fourth page said, I see _____ sheep on the farm. The fifth page said, I see _____ ducks on the farm. I printed out clip-art farm animals and the kids had to count each animal and write the number of each animal on the appropriate line and paste the animals on the page. This activity emphasized counting, one-to-one correspondence and number writing. I adapted this activity from the website http://www.pre-kpages.com/farm.html




Project Paper Plate Pig Face- Connor and Lauren loved this project. Materials needed: 2 paper plates (1 large- for the body, 1 small-for the head (or cut one of the plates smaller), light pink construction paper or card stock -for the nose and ears, pink paint Black permanent marker, pink pipe cleaner.

Connor and Lauren painted both the regular and small paper plates pink. When the paint was dry they glued the small plate in the middle of the larger plate. I cut out a small pink circle out of paper along with triangle ears. They then glued the small pink paper circle for the nose to the middle of the small plate. They added eyes, nostrils and a mouth with a black marker. Finally, they glued on pink paper triangles for the ears. I curled the pink pipe cleaner for the tail and punched a hole in the top of the larger paper plate to thread the tail through. I let the kids choose where they wanted the tail to go!! I got the idea for this project from the website http://www.pre-kpages.com/farm.html under the farm theme link.


Farm Animal Patterns! - I printed out farm animal clip-art and started patterns on a piece of construction paper. Then I had Connor and Lauren finish the patterns gluing the correct farm animals on the piece of paper. We just started doing patterns, so it is an ongoing learning activity.

















Project Bean Farm Scene- Connor and Lauren drew a farm scene on a piece of cardstock. Then I traced over their drawings with White Elmers glue and they placed beans on the glue. The beans outlined their drawings. They loved drawing their pictures and watching them "pop" with the beans. Materials needed- cardstock or heavy construction paper, markers, Elmers glue or craft glue, beans or seeds.




Project Paper Plate Duck- Connor and Lauren made a paper plate duck which incorporated their handprints! I got this idea from the website http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals.htm This site has templates you can use. I used a paper plate that Connor and Lauren painted yellow. I drew my own beak and feet and traced Connor and Lauren's hands. Materials needed - paper plate, yellow construction paper, orange construction paper, yellow paint, googly eyes, glue and a stapler (the above website has templates for the beak, feet and head).
Directions:
Connor and Lauren painted a paper plate yellow.
Then, I folded the paper plate in half so the color showed on both sides.
I drew feet and a beak on orange construction paper and a round head on yellow construction paper and I traced their hands yellow construction paper and cut every piece out. The website has templates you can use. I folded the middle part of the feet up into the folded plate and stapled. Connor and Lauren glued the folded beak piece onto the head piece. Then they glued large googly eyes onto the head above the beak. Then Connor and Lauren glued the head on the side top corner of the body(the plate). Finally, I took their traced handprints and stapled them to the other top corner (for the feathers)!