Integrating songs in farm-themed lessons to teach different concepts is a great way to help children remember and comprehend better. Preschool songs with catchy melodies will make learning more fun and exciting.
Check out these ten farm songs that will get children jamming while getting introduced to the different farm animals.
This classic song, Old Macdonald Had a Farm, with a catchy tune teaches children the different animal names and their unique sounds. It helps children understand order, increase their vocabulary words, and recognize word relationships.
This song version features six different farm animals that children can learn about. These animals include a pig oinking, a duck quaking, a horse neighing, sheep baaing, cow mooing, and turkey gobbling.
Help children remember the order in which these animals are presented in the song with the use of pictures or plastic toys while singing. Show the animal as a prompt for children to recall the name and sound it makes.
Doing this will also help children distinguish the animals from each other as they learn to see their differences.
Use this opportunity to discuss that despite living together on the farm, these animals are unique, not just with the sounds they make. Their needs, such as food and shelter, also differ.
The farmer is the focal point in this version of the farm song. The Farmer in the Dell highlights the different tasks a farmer needs to accomplish to keep the farm running. Knowing these tasks increases children’s vocabulary and awareness of the farmer’s job.
Some of the farmer’s tasks include milking the cow, feeding the pigs, gathering the eggs, planting seeds, and picking the corn. Use these phrases to make hand movements that children can mimic.
For example, children can make squeezing motions with their hands for milking the cow. Doing this will help children to observe, imitate, and improve hand coordination.
Extend this song by exploring the farmer’s life. Use videos, pictures, and books for children to understand this career better. Consider adding a farm-themed activity in pretend play area or make sensory bins with the same theme.
If possible, visit a nearby farm so children will see the song’s descriptions of the farmers’ jobs in real life.
Sung to the familiar tune, this farm-themed song introduces children to the farmer’s responsibilities on the farm. This shows children that farmers must plant hay, feed chickens, chop wood, and milk the cows.
Teach children movements that go with these tasks to help improve their arm and leg coordination, spatial awareness, and crossing-the-midline skills.
For example, children may chop the wood by lifting their arms with fists together, pretending to hold an ax, and lowering both arms to split a log.
Introduce other activities that farmers do that are not part of the lyrics for children to understand the farmer’s job better.
Consider picking fruits, shoveling dirt, raking hay, watering plants, and driving the tractor. Create movements to go with these as well.
Play a charade game for children to guess the movement and relate this to the farmer’s job. Show different tools and equipment that the farmer uses through pictures.
Scarecrows are a familiar sight in fields. They serve a unique purpose that helps unburden farmers from having their crops eaten by birds. This song is perfect for scarecrow-related crafts and activities that improve children’s fine motor skills.
Use Dingle Dangle Scarecrow with the book “The Scarecrow’s Hat” by Ken Brown. It is a hilarious story about an intelligent chicken that wanted the scarecrow’s hat and found a way to get it.
Extend the song by showing pictures or videos of scarecrows in the field. Explain how beneficial these are on the farm. Seeing how it works in real life will help children understand better its role in the field.
Play a game of finding a home for the scarecrow. Use pictures of corn fields, farms, snowy mountains, deserts, etc.
Ask children if a scarecrow can live in the picture shown. This activity will help children improve their oral language and reasoning skills.
Every animal has a unique sound that children can easily recognize. Use this song for children to associate the animal with its sound. The animals featured in this song are cow, dog, cat, pig, mouse, horse, bird, and sheep.
Use pictures to help reinforce learning. As children sing the song, show the picture of the animal. Doing this will help them retain information. It will also increase their vocabulary as they remember the animals’ names.
Extend this activity by introducing other farm animals and their sounds, such as hen, rooster, donkey, and turkey. Use the animal pictures to play a matching or memory game.
Children’s discrimination skills will improve as they match the pictures. It will help them pay attention to details and consider the similarities and differences as they find identical pictures.
Use pictures of animals from different breeds and point out that they may not look alike but still make the same sound.
This is a song that teaches different math concepts to young learners. Children can practice counting up to five and counting in reverse by pointing at the ducks.
The Five Little Ducks song introduces the concept of decrease and is an excellent introduction to subtraction.
Ask children, “How many are left?” each time a duckling fails to return. Doing this will familiarize children with such prompts when answering subtraction problems.
Use pictures or plastic toys as manipulatives for children to make better connections with math concepts and objects.
This tactile activity will allow children to understand that physical models can help them find the solution to math problems.
Use this song to teach gross motor skills by allowing children to imitate duck movements like fly and waddle. Demonstrate the action and let the children follow.
Make it more challenging by adding a simple obstacle course. Add small chairs where children can duck walk in slalom style.
A shepherd boy is an inspiration for this song. They are tasked to take care of the sheep and the cattle as they graze in the meadows. They keep watch over the animals to ensure their safety.
Use Little Boy Blue for role play in pretend play areas. Children can pretend to care for the sheep. Use simple dialogues to help children improve their memory and oral language skills.
Extend the activity by discussing the different responsibilities of a shepherd boy. For this task, show videos and pictures for children to see their work in real life. Use storybooks for them to understand better the care for sheep and cattle.
Discuss the different ways to care for these animals. Talk about their food and safety measures that need to be done to keep them away from predators.
Ask children to find different ways to protect the animals from danger, especially at nighttime.
A shepherd boy is an inspiration for this song. They are tasked to take care of the sheep and the cattle as they graze in the meadows. They keep watch over the animals to ensure their safety.
Use this song for a role play in pretend play areas. Children can pretend to care for the sheep. Use simple dialogues to help children improve their memory and oral language skills.
Extend the activity by discussing the different responsibilities of a shepherd boy. For this task, show videos and pictures for children to see their work in real life. Use storybooks for them to understand better the care for sheep and cattle.
Discuss the different ways to care for these animals. Talk about their food and safety measures that need to be done to keep them away from predators.
Ask children to find different ways to protect the animals from danger, especially at nighttime.
Children are introduced to positional words with this farm-themed song. It will also increase their vocabulary as they learn the names of the different farm animals.
As they practice identifying the location of the animals, children will develop their oral language skills.
All Around the Farm mentions eleven positional words, including above, below, front, back, left, right, inside, outside, up, down, and between.
Use the images in the video to help children describe the animals. Let children describe their color, size, unique features, and what these animals do.
Reinforce learning by using pictures or toy animals and placing them in areas where children can use the exact positional words, just like in the song.
Include this activity in a hunting game. Ask the children if they can find where the animal is located. Require them to answer using prepositional phrases, such as inside the, in front of, above the, left of, etc.
Children will learn about color words and their spelling with the song, Color Farm, as their vocabulary increases. Played to the familiar tune “Bingo,” the farm animals in this song are named after colors.
Children can easily find the connection when they see that the animal’s name is also its color. These are Black, the cat; Brown, the dog; Purple, the cow; Green, the horse; Orange, the duck; Blue, the bird; Yellow, the chick; and Red, the pig.
Extend this activity by providing coloring pages of the animals mentioned in the song and letting children color them according to their names. Older children may also trace or write the color words on the pages.
Help children develop critical thinking skills by using pictures or videos to discover the possibility of these animals having the exact color. For example, ask children, upon showing different pictures, “Do you think a cow can be purple?”
This interactive song combines movement to teach children the process of planting seeds by the farmers. As children sing The Farmer, their memory and coordination will improve.
Extend this activity with a science lesson on the life cycle of plants. Use pictures, charts, videos, and other visual aids to help children understand how plants grow from seeds.
Connect this with showing children how farming has evolved. Show old farming practices using horse-drawn plows and hand tools to manually till the soil and settle each plant one at a time.
Compare these with modern practices showing machinery that makes farming efficient for planting a huge crop that will supply a big population.
Children will improve their critical thinking skills, and this activity will also bring awareness to how food reaches their plates.
Learning about the planting process will enable children to appreciate better the farmers who tirelessly work to harvest produce that would provide sustenance for everyone.
Conclusion
Children will learn different concepts with these farm songs. From animal names, sounds, and colors to the various responsibilities of the farmer on the farm, these songs are a wonderful resource to use in the farm unit study.
Thank you for reading. Come back and check out our other song articles soon.
