Help develop your preschooler’s language skills with FREE farm animal printables! It’s easy and effective, but best of all, it takes literally no prep work at all!
This post now includes free farm animal picture cards to use with your farm theme preschool lesson plans. Be sure to grab them from the end of this post.
Oral Language Activities for Preschoolers Using Farm Photo Cards
One of the things that can be so frustrating about teaching preschoolers is their developing language skills. They come to you still learning how to form words clearly, how to communicate their needs and wants, and let’s face it…they also have to learn how to speak kindly, too.
But here’s the thing.
There are multiple ways to develop a preschooler’s language skills. In fact, I’ve written an oral language preschool curriculum, and this is one of our favorite, albeit simple, activities that I do with my preschoolers to help them develop their skills.
Now, adding some free farm animal printables is just a bonus because preschoolers are naturally curious about farm animals. That means they already like talking and learning about them, so it makes perfect sense to use farm animal printables, pictures and games to keep those preschoolers talking and working on their language skills.
Frequently Asked Questions about a Preschool Farm Theme
The best way to explain farm to kids is with a preschool farm theme! Kids will love visiting a local farm, if possible, and seeing the animals, equipment, and the crops. Read farm books and sing songs about farms and farm animals.
Use lots of fun farm themed activities to teach! There are farm sensory bins, alphabet and literacy activities, and math activities. You can also include science activities by talking about seeds and plants.
There are so many preschool farm theme activities you can include in your lesson plans! Learning activities should include a variety of activities from each content area, like farm theme sensory play, art, math, science, and literacy. Printable activities are very popular for teaching math and literacy especially! You can even provide some farm animal costumes or masks for pretend play.
A popular place to start is by teaching the names of farm animals and the sounds they make. You can use stuffed animals, pictures, or even a few live animals as models.
One of our favorite ways to teach is through music. There are lots of farm and farm animal songs, and they are a great way to reinforce the names of the animals and their sounds! Don’t miss the classic Old MacDonald Had a Farm.
Related Reading
Farm Animal Activities to Develop Language
All you need for any of these farm activities is a set of farm animal pictures. I actually used these cards, but I also have these farm animal nomenclature cards, too!
Materials
- free printable farm animal pictures
- small farm animal toys (optional)
- jumbo farm animals toys (optional)
Language Development Activities Using Free Farm Animal Printables
Our favorite activity is to make matches. Using one of the farm animal printables listed above or below, and a set of Toob or other farm animal toys, invite your preschooler to make matches.
This is a little challenging for some preschoolers as the animal toy doesn’t always match the cards. Now this opens up a lot of opportunity for talking about similarities and differences.
Speaking of similarities and differences, you can invite your preschooler to pick two cards and share things that are the same about the two farm animals as well as what is different.
My three-year-old likes making the animal noises as he lines up multiples of farm animals on each card.
Here, my son is lining up “Mama sheepeds and the baby sheepeds.” This helps him develop his language skills as he gets to practice language sounds, and when he inappropriately says “sheepeds” or “sheeps”, I kindly correct him to say, “sheep”.
Preschoolers also enjoy being quizzed, for lack of a better term, about the farm animals.
I asked my preschoolers to point to the animals’ body parts and label them myself when the preschooler isn’t sure. For younger preschoolers and even young toddlers, this modeling is a top strategy by experts.
This is a rooster (pointing to it). Please point to the rooster.
The rooster has long tail feathers. See me point to them? Can you show me the roosters tail feathers?
The rooster’s mouth is called a beak. It’s hard. See the beak here? You can point to the beak.
The rooster has claws on his feet. Look at his claws. Please point to the rooster’s feet. Can you find his claws now?
Where is the rooster?
Related Reading
After each question, I ask the child to say the word. Rooster, as he points. Tail, as he points. Beak, and he points.
This is a basic way to not only work on oral language development, but also speech development. Say each work clearly and articulate and encourage your preschooler to do the same.
How to Develop Oral Language Skills in Preschoolers
This is just one of many activities featured in my Daily Lessons in Oral Language Preschool Lesson Plans.
These lesson plans are designed around short, high-interest activities for preschoolers that are designed to increase language and literacy development in early childhood. These oral language lesson plans also develop expressive language in toddlers and preschoolers.
Get Your Free Printable Farm Animal Photos Here
The farm animal photo cards featured in the images of this post were a purchase I found at a garage sale years ago. They are a pack of DK farm animal pictures for preschoolers.
Unfortunately, they are no longer available, so I’ve attempted to create a basic version that can be downloaded here. So, please keep in mind that the pdf you download will not have matching images to those in the photos on this post.
More FREE Farm Animal Printables
The above activities can be done with just about any farm animal pictures. Here are some more free farm animal printables that can be used well, plus some other fun printable farm activities your preschoolers will enjoy.
Need More Activities for Your Farm Theme Lesson Plans?
I’ve put all my BEST farm activities in a single place, making it extra easy for you to do your preschool lesson planning. Be sure to grab all the free printables while you’re there, too. Click the link below!
Done for You Preschool Literacy Curriculum
You can see them below. Just click on the image. But you might also be interested in my other preschool literacy lesson plans, too, or grab all entire preschool literacy curriculum in a bundle!
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
I really appreciate all of the instructions you include on these. It goes well beyond my E-I-E-I-O.