Integrated Unit Preschool Classroom: Farm Animals

1. Language/Literacy

1.1. Vocabulary Development

1.1.1. Activity: Read farm books

1.1.2. Activity: Sing "Old MacDonald" and other farm related songs

1.1.3. Activity: While playing with figurine farm animals, children practice the correct names and sounds of each.

2. Fine Arts

2.1. Creating Art

2.1.1. Activity: Children paint barn yard scenes that incorporate all the animals they have learned.

2.2. Creating Movement and Music

2.2.1. Activity: Children dance along to "Animals on the Farm" acting like each particular animal and creating their own movements for how they think that animal would behave.

2.2.2. Activity: Children sing finger songs and nursery rhymes related to farm animals.

2.3. Creating Dramatic Play

2.3.1. Activity: Children act out the different stories relating to farms, e.g. Maisy on the Farm taking on the role of the animals.

2.4. Dramatic Play in Context

2.4.1. Activity: Using a barn doll house, farmers, farm animals, etc. children engage in imaginary play

2.4.2. Activity: Children are provided with props such as a cowboy hat, animal costumes, a hoe, etc. and then put on a play about what life on a farm is like.

3. Mathematics

3.1. Number Sense

3.1.1. Activity: Figurine/Pictures of farm animals are used for counting.

3.1.2. Activity: Children place correct number of horses/cows/chickens/etc. when given a written numeral.

3.1.3. Activity: Using the figurines, children determine if there are more cows than horses, etc.

3.2. Data Analysis

3.2.1. Activity: Children sort animals into their appropriate groups, i.e. pigs with pigs.

3.3. Patterns

3.3.1. Activity: Animals are arranged in patterns and children are asked to repeat the patterns. E.g. cow, duck, pig, cow, duck, pig.

4. Science

4.1. Observes, Questions and Hypotheses

4.1.1. Activity: children match the baby farm animal to the correct parent, i.e. a calf to a cow or a duckling to a duck.

4.2. Analysis and Conclusion

4.2.1. Activity: Children describe the differences between animals, such as bulls have horns while cows have utters.

4.3. Communication

4.3.1. Activity: Each child is assigned an animal to learn facts on then each presents their animal to the class.