Literacy

Farm Themed Station Ideas Using Items Found At Home

These are some other basic station activity ideas that I have included in a farm-themed My Obstacle Course for Andrew. The great thing about them is that I used things that I already had at home so this is another reminder to look around in your child’s stuff to see if they have toys that fit with the theme you are doing. When doing my own “treasure hunt” for this theme I found a farm puzzle, his Fisher-Price Farm set with the animals, some plastic animals we accumulated somewhere (possibly Michael’s), and some farm-themed books.

Farm Puzzle

Puzzles can be done in a variety of ways, depending on what your child is ready for.

Put the puzzle together ahead of time and remove several pieces. When the child gets to the station, they put the pieces that have been removed into the puzzle. This helped us tremendously because Andrew would get overwhelmed at all of the pieces in front of him, not quite getting how to look for edges and corners. When he put the pieces into the puzzle, he felt as proud as if he had done the whole thing and the next time I would remove a few more pieces to challenge him a bit more.
Separate the edge pieces from the middle pieces. Create the frame first before strategically introducing the other pieces. With beginner type puzzles, this is not difficult to do. Just look for pieces that fit in the spaces next to the edge pieces and hand them to your child.
Complete puzzle in the typical fashion.

Fisher Price Farm

While this is meant for more pretend play, you could make it a more direct activity by having your child place the animals in their correct spaces, having them make the sounds that the animals make or match the animals with the animal name written on a card or cutout. For these, I would probably incorporate some sort of mystery pouch so that they have to reach in, choose an animal and then do the activity. Doesn’t take much to make it more intriguing! Here is a post I did a while ago on mystery pouches.

Plastic Farm Animals

Provide clues for the animals that you have and have your child match the animal that goes with the clue. (Ex. What kind of animal likes to roll in the mud? Pig!) I would use the same mystery strategy I mentioned above.

Farm Books

Books can be read as a read aloudÂ (where the adult reads while the child listens or vice versa), read together (adult and child read together or take turns reading pages) or talk about the pictures and point out things on the pages without reading the text that is on the page. This can be as easy as saying, “Where is the barn?” or “Point to the cow.” Include some post-it notes so you can label these items (without ruining the book) to add word and picture connections.

I encourage you to go on your own treasure hunts and see what you can find. Remember that things don’t always have to be used in the way they were originally meant to be used. Get creative! Think simple! Remember to meet your child where they are and build the skills they need.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Farm Themed Sticker Story

When I purchase things to use in My Obstacle Courses with Andrew, I LOVE it when I can use them for multiple activities. Here is just one example of how easy it is to create a completely different activity using something as basic as package of stickers.

I had some farm stickers, which I used for a farm themed memory match game…

P1040979 — Farm Themed Memory Match Pairs

and decided to create a fill in the blank story using them. At the time, Andrew was 4 and since he wasn’t yet speaking, I wanted to know if he knew which animals made which sounds. This gave me the perfect opportunity to find out since I could read the words, say the sounds and he could select the animal that went with it.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Farm Themed Sticker Story

For this station activity, I typed up some basic sentences with a space provided for a sticker to go, printed it out, set out the stickers for Andrew to choose from and that was it.

This is what I wrote (so you can see it’s not rocket science 🙂 ):

Out in the country, there was a little red ___ (barn). There were lots of animals on the farm. There was a ___ (horse) that said “neigh!” There was a ___ (pig) that said “oink!” There was a ___ (cow) that said “moo!” There was even a ___ (scarecrow) that didn’t say anything, but scared away the birds.

Once at the station, I read the sentence and had him pick the sticker that best fit. He peeled it off of the sheet and placed it onto the paper on the line provided. This was not only reinforcing his knowledge of animals and their sounds, it was also fine motor skills of peeling and placing.

This activity can be adapted to any theme that you are doing, doesn’t take long to prepare and is a good way to build vocabulary or provide information about a certain topic/thing while keeping your child engaged in the process.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Autumn Themed Vocabulary and Picture Matching

When I begin working on putting together a My Obstacle Course, I choose my theme and then as part of my preparation, I usually head to Enchanted Learning to see if they have anything I can use to build literacy or math skills. This is an example of how I used one of their thematic vocabulary sheets, altered the look of it a bit and created an engaging station activity to build vocabulary!

I began by printing off the sheet which is meant to be a “draw a line from picture to word” activity. While I love the pictures and the concept, as I mentioned above, I wanted something a bit more fun and interactive.

P1040986 — Autumn matching sheet (vocabulary and pictures) from EnchantedLearning.com.

I got out a leaf-shaped pad of note paper that I had gotten at Teacher Heaven…

P1040988 — A pad of autumn-themed note paper.

Cut out the pictures and glued them onto the sheets of notepaper. I chose to write out the words instead of cutting and gluing the ones from the original sheet but you could do that if you’d like. I laminated these with clear contact paper so they would be more sturdy and last longer, but you could also use index cards instead.

P1040990 — Close up of what a matching pair looks like.

When I set up the station activity for our Obstacle Course, I set out the pictures and put the words in a pile below (shown below). I did it this way because I wanted him to see the word, hear the word and be able to place the word on the picture. If you have a child who is already reading or is ready to build word reading skills, you could do it the opposite way and see if they can locate the word based on beginning sound or knowledge of how the word is spelled.

P1040991 — My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Match the word with the picture.

P1040992 — The word "pumpkin" matched with the picture of a pumpkin.

This could also be used as a Crawl and Match activity (as we did in the station shown below).

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Crawl and Match the words with the pictures.

It might just be me, but doesn’t this version look a bit more kid-friendly and fun than just sitting down with a sheet of paper? Still building same skills (minus the “drawing the line” skill) but much more engaging.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Farm Themed Memory Match

This is a really easy way to create a thematic memory match game using stickers and index cards (or cutouts). Here is a link to an earlier memory match post I wrote. I like including this game because it helps to build concentration, encourages basic game skills like turn taking and provides a good opportunity to make connections and build vocabulary based on the stickers.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Thematic Memory Match

This station activity takes me only about 5 minutes to prepare and has been a favorite of Andrew’s for a while now.

Step 1: Get stickers. Some stickers come with a matching pair on one sheet (like this one) and other packs do not. For the packs that don’t have matchers on one sheet, I just use two sticker sheets and get the matching sticker that way.

Step 2: Get something sturdy to place the stickers on. I like to use index cards and found these small, blank, colored cards at my teacher store. I choose one color to use per memory match game and try to choose a color that goes with the theme or season we are in. For this one, I chose to use the red ones.

P1040974 — Small, colored index cards (2x3) are perfect for this activity.

P1040976 — I've also used 4x6 index cards and cut them in half with my paper cutter.

Step 3: Place matching stickers on two separate cards to make a matching pair.

Continue until you have made all of the matching pairs that you can.

Step 4: Mix them up or shuffle them. Set them out in rows and it is ready!

P1040981 — Memory match game set up and ready to play.

We take turns turning over cards to try to find matches and continue until all matches have been found.

When I began doing this with Andrew, we only did three pairs at a time and the cards were face up so I could show him what we were looking for – “Can you find the card that looks the same?” We did it like this until he understood that we were matching and then began turning them over. Remember to think about the skills your child is ready for and modify the activity so they can build those skills without immediately getting overwhelmed by rules and details they are not ready for. That way, it will be more beneficial and fun for both of you!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Apple Fact Reading and Answering Questions

When I did an “apple” search on www.enchantedlearning.com, I came across an Â “Apple Book” that had a page of “Apple Facts” as well as some “Apple Questions” based on the facts. Andrew was reading but I wanted him to practice his oral reading because he would drop sounds and read too fast. I also wanted to work on the reading comprehension skill of reading for information. I decided to use these printouts to go together but set up as two separate stations.

For the first station, I cut the “Apple Facts” printout and pasted it onto a sheet of red construction paper (not necessary but I wanted it to be a little more sturdy and colorful). I added a talking phone Â (Toobaloo) that we had so he could hear what he sounded like. These “phones” are cool because when you speak into one end, it magnifies your voice allowing you to hear what you sound like through the end by your ear.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Reading Apple Facts

Apple Fact sheet from Enchanted Learning with telephone

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Answering Questions Based On Apple Facts

For the second part of this activity at the other station, once again I cut out the page and glued it onto some red paper. I also wanted a way for him to demonstrate his understanding without needing intelligible speech. This was important for us because his speech was still not very intelligible (except by me) so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t assuming he was answering correctly so I thought I’d utilize a basic way to provide choices for him. I had some mini apple cutouts and wrote answer choices on either side so that we could read the questions, look at both answer choices and he could choose the side that he thought was correct.

Apple Questions from Enchanted Learning Website with answer choices on mini apple cut-outs

This was a great way for me to see his understanding of the facts that he read without needing to be intelligible. It only took me a few minutes to prepare this station but helped give him information, helped him to hear how he sounded and helped him to realize that it is important to pay attention when reading, in this case for information.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Apple Books

Including short books or pages of books is a great station activity in any My Obstacle Course. When setting this up as My Obstacle Course station, I set out two books and have Andrew choose the book he’d like to read. Giving him the power to choose the book has worked so much more than just telling him what we are going to read.

Where To Get Thematic Books

I have accumulated a lot of my thematic books through the Scholastic Book Clubs and the public library or local bookstores are also a great place to get books to go along with whatever you are doing. The Scholastic Book Club is run through a school or classroom teacher. The school or classroom gets points to earn books for their library and the books tend to be at a discount from bookstores. If you want to be able to see the books you are purchasing by shopping at a bookstore, I know that at our local Barnes and Noble they usually have a whole table set up in the Children’s section entry with books to go with the season in a variety of reading levels and types (fiction/non-fiction).

Using books or stories as a station activity helps to build reading skills such as:

Comprehension – this is a great opportunity to point out characters (if fiction), setting (when and where a story is taking place), important information, any problems (a great time to point out facial expressions or body postures illustrated with what is happening), predicting what will or what could happen next and pointing out the conflict resolution (if there was one) or tie back to the information learned from the book.
Fluency – finding a good reading rate where the reader can be understood, no words are dropped or added and punctuation is followed. Andrew tends to run right through periods and will read so fast that he mumbles over words and phrases. Adding a strategy like pointing to words as they are read helps him read the words that are there and saying “stop” when he gets to a comma or period helps him remember what the punctuation means.
Decoding – practicing sight words, spelling words or vocabulary words in isolation with a good deal of repetition is very helpful for struggling readers and having them read passages that are at their reading level is a great opportunity for them to practice their decoding in a purposeful way while also allowing you to see what words give them problems.

I have used these stations as:

a “listening” station to help him build his “good listening” skills
turn taking while reading – he reads one page or side and I read the other which helps to keep him engaged while giving him a break
him reading pages or passages to build his fluency and intelligibility

Helpful Hints For Beginning Reading Skills:

Point to the words as they are being read.
Use a bookmark, ruler, piece of construction paper, reading guideÂ (cool tool!)Â to help stay focused on the line of text being read.
Have a pad of post-it notes handy to write down things learned, new words, words that were challenging and words to define.

Happy reading!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!