Count Your Chickens! 10 Fun Farm Learning Activities For KS1

Themed activities are the new schooling! Use farm-themed activities to help your kids learn all about the different barnyard animals, or use the theme to teach them about maths and literacy.

This list of 10 free farm activities will help your kids learn, play and have fun at the same time. As well as creating a positive environment for your kids to learn, the fun animal theme will make it easier for them to remember and absorb everything they've learned.

This activity encourages kids to learn all about the different farm animals, as well as introducing the difference between mammals and other species. Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper, and when you name an animal, ask your children to draw a picture in the correct column based on whether they have feathers, beaks and lay eggs or four legs, a mouth and give birth to live babies.

Learning all about the different parts of the body is essential when teaching kids about different farm animals. You can find free printables online to help your children to learn about the parts of a hen, for example. All they need to do to complete this easy farm activity is label the different parts of the hen in the picture using the words that are listed on the sheet. Activities like these make learning a whole lot simpler for your little ones, and they can always refer back to the sheet if they need reminding.

Since it's difficult to get to a farm during lockdown, why not teach your kids how to milk a cow from home! This is one of the best farm theme activities that you can do with your children to help improve their fine motor skills. All you need is a glove, some water and a needle. Simply pour your water into a rubber glove, use a needle to poke holes in each of the fingers, and use this as a mechanism to help your kids learn how to milk a farm animal. Not only is this a fun activity that will put a smile on your kid's face, but it gives them a farm experience in an environment where they feel safe.

This is another one of our simple activities for preschoolers or KS1 students. You can either use a printable from online or simply write down a list of animals along with their corresponding foods and get your kids to match them up! This is a very simple activity that helps your children get even more familiarised with different farm animals and what they eat.

What Animal Am I? is a game that encourages dramatic play, having fun, and learning all at the same time. There are many ways to play this game, but to fit it into the farm theme all you need to do is give your child a farm animal that they then have to act out, describe or list different facts while the other kids guess which animal they are. This is a great farm theme activity to play with different family members while in lockdown, and can work over face-time too!

Get your kids' little hands working and improve their fine motor skills with this easy and cheap sensory bin! Fill a tub or box with some birdseed, hide some farm animal figurines in the birdseed and get your little ones digging. If they don't like the texture of the birdseed, use a toy tractor to help them sort through and find all the different farm animals that you've hidden. There are plenty of ways to make farm sensory bins to help improve fine motor skills, and these farm theme activities make for hours of fun and learning.

Pattern cards are a quick and easy way of reinforcing the concept of patterning. These printable, farm theme pattern cards provide many hours of free farm theme learning activities for preschoolers or KS1 students. If you'd rather create the cards yourself, you can follow this simple tutorial from StayAtHomeEducator and get creative! The farm animal activity cards come with AB patterns as well as ABC patterns, meaning you can use them however you'd like based on your kid's ability.

This fun dice game is another one of our easy farm activities for preschoolers that will help teach them simple maths. The concept is that you print a picture of a pig and a handful of counters (preferably brown to reflect mud but anything will do) and place the corresponding number of counters that you get from the dice onto the pig. If you want to use this for other farm animals, the activity is easily altered to fit any ability or need. Rolling the dice and using their hands to get the counters will also help to develop their fine motor skills at the same time as improving their counting.

Rhyming is fun, rhyming with a farm theme rhyme scheme is even more fun. This activity is bound to keep your kids engaged, occupied and it will improve their literacy skills at the same time. All you need to do is show a picture of a farm animal, or some other farm iconography such as barns, tractors or hay and your kids need to think of a word that rhymes with it! This is one of those farm activities that you can play for hours, and at different difficulty levels depending on the ability of the child. There are plenty of free printables of farm animals online that you can find, or you can create them yourself if you're feeling crafty.

This farm-themed counting activity is very easy to execute, but can reap countless benefits and reinforces a number of different skills that will help your kids with all of their future learning. Gather up some farm animal figurines, including animals with two legs and place them in the middle of two bins. Dedicate one bin to animals with four legs and the other to animals with two legs, then ask your child to count their feet and sort them into the appropriate bins. This free and fun activity allows them to practice counting up to four, number recognition, animal names and characteristics and decision making.