Infusing small world play is an amazing, hands on farm theme activities to add to your fall activities for preschool, or you can even consider a whole farm preschool theme!
One of my favorite things to offer my preschoolers are small world play settings. Autumn is the perfect time to invite preschoolers to a farm and tractor small world, as the seasons are changing and farmers are out harvesting their fields.
What is Small World Play?
Small world play is a play-based activity using small items to create scenes, stories, and incorporate imaginative play. Kids interact with the mini toys, sensory bins or trays, and use their imagination to play and explore!
A small world can be set up in a variety of ways… in a sensory bin or table, using play dough, on the ground, even in a cardboard box!
Small world play incorporates materials like mini figures, sand, play dough, beads, fake flowers, slime, colored rice, water beads, you name it! The more sensory fun, the better!
Check out our ultimate guide to sensory bins for more great ideas for developing hands-on sensory small world play!
We’ve created these amazing farm literacy and math centers for your preschool farm theme! These centers can be used in centers, small world play, or sensory bins!
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Farm Preschool Centers$10.00
Small World Area Ideas
When kids participate in small world play, they are learning to be creative, communicate, and build language. Here, you’ll find small world play examples and ideas to support development in these areas.
15 Fun and Creative Small World Play Ideas
These fifteen fun and engaging small world play ideas include a day at the beach, cardboard box town, construction site small world, and more! These clever small world ideas make learning about the everyday world an exciting adventure!
Small World Pretend Play Ideas from A-Z
With over 26 different small world ideas, this post is full of imaginative play! From a bubbling alligator swamp to Star Wars and The Little Red Hen, these small world activities can be customized for any kiddo!
The Ultimate Small World Play Guide
Check out the ultimate small world play guide for all things miniature! With filler ideas and hands-on themes, it’s the perfect guide to creating a small world for your preschoolers.
Small World Toys
Creating a small world area doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy, often times you can use materials from around the classroom or house! We put together this farm small world with just a few needed materials! Take a look below!
Farm Books for Preschool
We read so many great farm books and I was amazed to see how much the class retained from them! I’m a huge fan of literacy and reading tons of books to my class, and it was a nice opportunity to see the results in such a visible way. Here are some of our favorites!
Farm Small World Play
Playing with this farm small world is fun for all kids, even toddlers, and well… grownups! It brings out our imagination, storytelling, and so many variations on farm life!
Materials
- tractor toys
- small farm animal toys
- acrylic pumpkins
- green and blue felt
- burlap scraps
- autumn dyed rice
- small containers to be troughs
- floral rocks
- full length mirror (optional)
The Setup
The first time we did this activity, I began by setting a full length mirror on the preschool table to serve as our play space. I love setting up invitations to play on mirrors! It adds another depth of dimension for the children to explore, but are not required.
Cut some green felt to represent a pasture and cut blue for a pond. The burlap scraps made a nice defined space for a field to be harvested.
Small rocks added a nice decorative element, and the dyed rice served as grains that had been harvested. I scattered the acrylic pumpkins around the farm setting, also to be harvested.
Then I put out the tractors and farm animals and invited the class to come play!
How to Play Small World Farm
The children sat down and immediately began playing. Once they began to play, I was able to sit back, observe, and take notes on my students’ learning. They didn’t need any direction from me, as the previous three weeks of our farm unit had prepared them for some amazing self guided playful learning.
The children played in different ways. Some students retold stories from picture books we had read together, like tractors pulling animals out of the pond (inspired by the book Otis the Tractor.)
Some of the children played by themselves, while others worked collaboratively. Additionally, I noticed that the children were reenacting all the things they had learned during our unit.
Their play included tractors harvesting fields of wheat (rice) and pumpkins, milking a cow, animals breaking out of the pasture, and many other imaginative things!
Pretend Play Farm Animals
What I was most impressed by was the use of language and new vocabulary the children used as they played with this farm activity for preschool. They used the words harvest and pasture, foal and dairy, fertilizer and field, among many other terms.
That use of new language was enough for me to know that this small world play was well worth the time the children spent playing!
We first used this farm small world at the end of a 3-week farm theme. My preschoolers spent three weeks learning about farms, tractors, and harvesting, so this was the perfect way to close our unit.
One of the greatest advantages of using small world play at the end of a thematic unit is that it allows children the opportunity to use the new knowledge and vocabulary they have learned.
I intended to take down the farm life small world after a few days, but I was so pleased with the response that I left it available to my students for a few more weeks after!
The children loved engaging in the dramatic play, and I loved seeing how much they had learned!
More Hands On Farm Theme Activities for Young Children
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Farm Preschool Centers$10.00
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Pumpkin Activity Pack$5.00 -
Food and Nutrition Activity Pack$5.00
Tractor Play
Preschoolers absolutely love farm equipment. Oversized, noisy, dirty… what’s not to love about tractors?! Using tractors in small world play is a great way to play farm and pretend to be a farmer. So check out some more way to infuse tractor play into your preschool day!
Otis the Tractor Books
We love Otis the Tractor and his quirky self! There are six fun books in the series about Otis and his adventures on the farm, with his new puppy, and even with troublesome weather! Check them out below and get your preschoolers hooked on Otis the fun-loving tractor!
Tractor Activities for Preschoolers
We love these fun hands-on tractor activities that infuse imagination and play!
Grab the art supplies and put together this fun and simple popsicle stick tractor. With a little glue, paint, and some construction paper, you will be plowing those fields with your craft tractor in no time!
Tractor Alphabet Tracing/Plowing
Little hands love to drive toy cars so why not use alphabet roads… with tractors! This set of 26 road shaped letters makes it fun to practice the alphabet! Plus, add in some farm animals and tractors to make this perfect for your farm theme.
Painting with Tractors – Painting the Letter Tt
Tractor wheels have many uses, including driving through the ‘mud’. With some brown paint and a little steering, these tractors are driving back and forth to create the letter Tt with their wheels!
Farm Activities for Preschoolers
Dive deep into your farm theme with this farm activities that include math, literacy, and fine motor! Your preschoolers will be ‘udderly’ crazy about a farm theme!
- Farmer Brown’s Five Apples Fingerplay
- Shape Activities with a Farm Theme
- Math Farm Patterning Activities
- Emergent Reader – On the Farm
- Scissor Skills – Farm Animals
Farm Toy Sets
We’ve added some fun farm-themed toys to utilize in your dramatic play, storytelling area, or sensory center. These farm sets can be a great addition to your preschool classroom to develop oral language, conflict resolution, and collaborative play.
Hands On Farm Small World
A farm and tractor small world provides imaginative play and learning during a preschool farm theme.
Materials
- tractor toys
- small farm animal toys
- acrylic pumpkins
- green and blue felt
- burlap scraps
- autumn-colored dyed rice
- small containers (to use as troughs)
- floral or river rocks
Tools
- full length mirror (optional)
Instructions
- Set out a full length mirror.
- Cut some green felt to represent a pasture, some blue felt to represent a pond, and place them on the mirror.
- Set out some burlap scraps to act as fields.
- Scatter the acrylic pumpkins around the farm, waiting to be harvested.
- Add fall-colored dyed rice to the fields to act as grains.
- Set out the tractors, small animals, and troughs.
- Invite your children to play!
Notes
Using a mirror in the setup adds another depth of dimension for the children to explore. Another advantage is that a full length mirror creates obvious boundaries, but since it runs the length of the preschool table, the children can sit at the table and there is plenty of space for everyone to play at once.
The only restriction I gave the children was that the materials were to stay on the mirror, and that the rocks could be moved, but not dropped, for fear of breaking the mirror.
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More Hands On Farm Theme Activities
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.
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