Farm Fun: Udder Painting for Kids

Last week we explored The Farm at preschool. We enjoyed many activities including making dirt paint pigs, chalk paint roosters and milk paint cows. We had lots of farm animal small world play, animal card lacing, counting and sorting of farm animal toys and animal stamping and writing.

The kids' favorite activity by far was our version of Udder Painting. It was lots of squishy, messy fun.

Here's what you need to try udder painting:
latex gloves
pin
paint
paper

You need one latex glove for each paint color you would like to use. Carefully prick a hole at the bottom of the fingertips of your glove. I used 4 fingers and left the thumb to help tie the glove together. In order to paint the children had to "milk the cow" - squeezing the paint out of the udders (glove).

I can not tell you how many giggles this activity caused. The children loved pretending to milk a cow as they painted. It was lots of sensory, squishy fun and a huge MESS!

This is not the kind of activity where you will end up with a particular finished product. It's all about the process.

We ended up with huge puddles of paint that took days to dry but it was definitely a fun and memorable experience for my preschoolers.

We also enjoyed lots of fun farm themed books over the course of our Farm Week.

Have fun udder painting!

Bern

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for the books showcased. 

Fun on the Farm: Pig Pancakes, A Farm Mini Book & A File Folder Game!

I surprised the Lil Divas with these pig pancakes the other day.

Needless to say they were a HUGE HIT!

They were easy to make too.

Just prepare your pancakes (or mix) the way you normally would.

Tip: 2 small pancakes = 1 pig

1 pancake makes the face &

with the other make the snout & ears.

Then using chocolate chips add eyes, nostrils & a mouth.

That's it! 

Easy, Fun & Delicious!

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The Lil Divas also worked on a Farm Mini Book.

I made the template - (if you would like it just e-mail me). We used farm stickers for our animals and the Lil Divas drew in some scenery. The Lil Divas were excited to act as illustrators and they have been reading their stories all week.

Here's a peek at our Farm Mini Books:

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To practice our farm words I also made a simple file folder game using clip art of farm animals.

I glued the pictures into the file folder and added a small piece of velcro near each picture. Then I typed each of the farm words & laminated them, adding some velcro to the back.

The Lil Divas had to match each farm word to the correct picture.

Here's what the Farm File Folder Game looks like.

(The Farmer is missing from this picture)

Books:

Farm Theme Movie Night:

Phonics Fun w/the _ig Family (A Pig Word Slide) for Pre-K & K

Learning to read is exciting but there are so many fundamentals to learn! My Oldest Diva wants to just be able to skip ahead of the "work" and read.

That's not really possible so instead I try to make the "work" seem more like play. Somedays I hit a home run and somedays I strike out but we're slowly moving forward.

This week we've been working on the -ig word family. I thought it fit well with our farm theme since we were talking about pigs.

I like to work around our themes as much as possible-

so that everything we do reinforces each other.

Here are a few of the activities we worked on:

Our Pig -ig Word Family Slide

Isn't he cute?

What You Need:

1 large & 1 small paper plate

pink construction paper

1 brass fastener

scissors

pink crayon

markers

eyes (stickers, wiggly eyes or drawn on)

What To Do:

Prep: Cut out a pig snout & 2 ears 

1. cut the larger paper plate so that it is only slightly larger than the small one Just enough to be able to easily slide it around. I found that leaving it whole made the big look weird but it's up to you.

2. color the front of both plates pink

3. using your scissor or the brass fastener make a hole through the middle of both plates.

4. I folded the small plate in half (horizontally) and near the middle cut a triangle for the letters to show through. See the photo below. I really wish I had taken pictures but my camera battery was dying out on me.

5. Near the triangle I wrote the letters ig.

6. I placed the larger plate under and wrote my target letters through the triangle window while actually spinning the plate around to ensure they showed through correctly. I used the letters p, b, d, r, w, f and tw.

7. Glue the ears onto the inside of the small plate. This ensures the pig always looks like a pig no matter how the plate spins.

8. Glue the snout onto the brass fastener - careful not to cover the opening or it will impede the viewing of your letters. 

9. Add eyes (we used stickers) and a mouth to complete your pig's face.

Now you are ready to practice your -ig word family words with your adorable Pig Word Slide!

For more practice we did several activities using free printables that I found HERE.

1. A picture/word matching activity - the Lil Divas had to read the word and match it to the correct picture on our chart.

2. Writing/Spelling - The Oldest Diva worked on identifying the _ig words and writing -ig to complete the word.

3. The Oldest Diva read this -ig Family Mini Book (found HERE) to me and helped her sister read it too! She feels so proud when she can read little books like these to us.

Books:

*This one does repeatedly use the word dumb but it ends up teaching a lesson about not judging people (or in this case animals) based on how they look - the pigs are actually pretty smart!*

Stay tuned for a fun Pig Craft tomorrow!

Bern

The Big Red Barn & Handprint Farm Animals

We started our Farm Theme by re-reading one of our familiar & favorite books - The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown!

I used to read the Lil Divas this story every single night when they were babies and into toddlerhood. I could recite it by heart and as the girls got older they could "read" along with me as well.

I was excited to re-visit the story with the Lil Divas and have some fun with farm animals.

Craft: Big Red Barn & Handprint Farm Animals

What You Need:

white paper 

(we taped two pieces together to make a larger sheet)

red, green, brown, yellow & blue paint

paint brushes

cotton balls

glue

wiggly eyes

black & orange permanent markers

What You Do:

1. Draw a big red barn onto the white paper.

2. Add grass if desired.

3. Make Handprint Farm Animals:

- to make a handprint horse paint hand brown 

and press onto paper with fingers pointing downward.

Add mane, tail, eye and mouth using black permanent marker.

 - to make handprint duck paint hand yellow 

and press sideways with thumb pointed upwards.

Use sideways thumbprint to make head.

Add beak and feet using orange permanent marker.

Add eye using black permanent marker or wiggly eye.

- to make a handprint lamb/sheep paint hand black 

and press onto paper with fingers downward.

Add cotton balls to palm to make wool & add wiggly eye.

Add scenery as desired in any remaining space

- trees, sun, etc.

The Lil Divas & I had a great time with this lil project!

Book:

What is your favorite farm book? Have you read The Big Red Barn?

Bern