Kids and farm animals are a perfect match. Give your toddlers a taste of farm life with a wide range of preschool farm-theme activities that get their minds and bodies moving. Farm-friendly crafts and projects can be easy to set up and clean up while keeping kids entertained for hours.
Interested in teaching your kids about farm animals and the farm lifestyle? Spark your toddler’s imagination and kickstart early brain development with these simple and fun farm activities and play ideas. We promise they will love them!
Muddy Pig Art
Learn about different farm animals while letting your toddler flex their creative muscle with farm crafts and activities like this muddy pig art project. If your child is obsessed with pigs after watching Charlotte’s Web or Babe, you can download an adorable pig printable online and print it on pink paper or copy it onto a pink sheet. This also works with more free farm printables to create a true barnyard scene.
Glue the cut-out free printable pig on construction paper. Mix equal parts shaving cream and glue in a paper bowl, and add a touch of brown paint to create your mud. Let your toddler paint the “mud” over the pig and allow the paint to dry. This is a great project to teach your kids why pigs love to roll around in the mud.
Bean Ant Farm
Ants may not be immediately associated with farm life, but if you look close enough, they can be found on crops, animals, and all over the property as they search for food. For this bean ant farm activity, you will need paper, black beans, glue, and a black marker.
Give your little ones a mini-lesson on what an ant farm is and how ants dig tunnels underground in a zig-zag manner. Then, they can recreate their own ant farm using the provided materials. Let them draw a zig-zag line with the black marker on the paper and add a thin strip of glue down the “tunnel.” Then, it is time to add the “ants” on the black line one after the other.
Hatching Chick Craft
Teach your toddler about the incubation and brooding process and have fun while doing it with this chick hatching project. Draw the outline of an egg on brown craft or butcher paper and make a small slit with scissors where the beak would break through. Now, draw an egg outline just a bit smaller than the brown egg shape you just created.
Here is where you can use yellow paint to teach your kid about the development of a chick and let them color in the egg with finger paint. Cut out a small, orange triangle, fold it in half, and then fold two side flaps up. These flaps will be glued to the yellow egg, so the beak is slightly lifted.
Let your toddler add the eyes with black paint and add glue to the outline of the brown egg to place on top of the chick. Once dry, your toddler can help the chick hatch by tearing the pre-made cut to reveal the inside of the egg. This is a great way to get your tyke into farm animals.
Bug Mud Slime
Making slime is one of the most popular activities for young kids. It is a calming activity that allows kids to focus and be creative. Get in on the slime fun with this bug mud slime recipe, featuring toy worms and other plastic bugs.
To make the slime, pour the clear glue into the bowl and then add water to the glue bottle to add back into the bowl. Use about the same amount of water and glue, about 8 ounces of each. Add about a tablespoon of a brown liquid watercolor and mix thoroughly. Add about a quarter of a cup of old coffee grounds.
Now, it’s time to gradually add about 6-7 ounces of liquid starch. Start by adding a tablespoon at a time and mixing thoroughly after every addition. After mixing in about half of the starch, knead the mixture like you are kneading dough and then continue adding a tablespoon at a time, kneading after every addition until you have added all the starch.
Keep kneading the slime until it has reached your desired consistency. Let your toddler’s imagination run wild with plastic worms and other insects and the bug mud slime you just created.
Farm Sensory Bin
Sensory bins are a great sensory play activity for toddlers, allowing kids to get hands-on and engage different senses. A quick and simple farm sensory bin can be made with a bin and a base of corn kernels, beans, rice, cereal, kinetic sand, or other kid-safe materials.
Add some scoops, spoons, farm animal toys, and other farm-related toys to complete the barnyard set-up. Set a sheet, table cloth, or beach towel under the bin and lay down a few simple ground rules for easy clean-up. Let your toddler explore on their own, play a counting game with them, pretend to feed the animals, or teach your kids about different aspects of the farm life.
Rugged Sandbox Play
For the adventurous toddler, ride-on toys are the perfect vehicle for exploring their backyard, sandbox, or any parent-approved and flat terrain. Stick to the farm theme by opting for an adorable and tough John Deere pedal tractor, designed to provide hours of fun while giving your toddler the freedom of movement and thrill of running a farm.
Farm Coloring Book
Make your toddler’s world vibrant and colorful with farm coloring pages featuring adorable farm animals, such as horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and more! Let your toddler fill the pages depicting everyday farm activities and scenery with every color of the rainbow.
Coloring books can also help them develop their fine motor skills and boost cognitive development while keeping them engaged for hours on end.
Miniature Playsets and Dioramas
Dioramas and miniature playsets are fun, preschool farm activities that allow your kids to explore their creativity and engage in imaginative play. This could be a great project to help toddlers learn about farm animals and can be done indoors or outdoors.
Start with something as simple as a shoebox and let your little one create a miniature world with craft supplies. You can also download printable sets and add mini farm animals and a John Deere farm toy set for an authentic touch.
Toddler Gardening
It’s never too early to get your little one interested in tending to a garden and embracing the natural world. What better way to learn how seeds grow into plants than with hands-on learning. Make learning fun by helping your toddler start their own garden by planting sunflowers, corn, beans, peas, zucchini, or pumpkin seeds.
Using recycled containers such as egg cartons, old cups or bowls, and any other planter material can be a great way to learn about reducing, reusing, and recycling. Similarly, your toddler can learn about composting by recycling food scraps into a heap for use later in their first organic garden. Add some drainage to your container, and you are good to go.
For extra fun, create an entire ecosystem with bug hotels, hummingbird feeders, bird baths, butterfly baths, and birdhouses. You can also buy live bugs such as monarch caterpillar cocoons and ladybugs from your local garden centers.
Berry Picking
Start setting a tradition of going berry picking every spring or summer at your local farm. Toddlers may not quite grasp the berry picking idea and munch on more berries than they pick, but that is okay. Teach them to look for ripe berries to help refine their motor skills.
In some cases, your toddler may not be as engaged in the berry-picking process and be more interested in checking out the farm animals or playing with the dirt. That’s fine, too!
Make Homemade Butter
Making homemade butter is a super easy and engaging activity for kids. For this fun and science-friendly activity, you need a small mason jar with a lid and some heavy whipping cream (about one pint or so). If you are worried about dropping and breaking glass, you can use plastic jars. Your toddler will love to shake the jar up, which is the main way to get that buttery consistency.
Play music so they can groove to the tunes, while they’re at it. When they need a bit of help, you can take over and keep shaking until the cream has become thick and buttery. Drain the leftover buttermilk and refrigerate the jar to let the cream harden. Now you have your very own homemade butter.
Visit an Agricultural Show
Instill a sense of wonder in the farm life in your children by visiting an agricultural show, perfect for all ages. You can choose from many options, including livestock shows, fairs, harvest festivals, and even small-scale events such as farmer’s markets. There are plenty of farm animal activities throughout the year. This is such a fun way to learn about what happens on a farm.
A farmer’s market scavenger hunt for fruits, veggies, and other fun items can be an excellent way to pass the time and teach your kids where our food and other materials come from. At an agricultural event, kids can see everything from farm machinery to farm animals up close and personal.
Shop Wilco Farm Stores for All Your Farm Supplies
If your toddler loves all things farm-related, they will love Wilco Farm Stores’ wide selection of apparel for kids and farm supplies to fuel their passion through the years. Shop Wilco Farm Stores to get all the farm activity supplies you need to have a fun and relaxing time with your little farmers.
