In Early Childhood 101 you learned that children go from real and concrete to abstract. You also learned that children need to go from simple to complex. Take a look at how farm animals can nurture these pre-reading skills.
Visual Memory
Visual memory is critical for remembering letters, sight words, etc. If children can recognize farm animals they will develop the visual skills that will help them remember letters, numbers, shapes, etc.
Visual Discrimination
When children can recognize the difference between a horse and a cow, they'll be on the path for discriminating an "m" from an "n" and "the" from "that."
Auditory Discrimination
As children learn to tell the difference between sounds animals make like "baa baa" and "moo," they are developing auditory skills that will help them tell the difference between /b/ and /m/.
Auditory Memory
What sound does the duck make? Well, isn't that very similar to the sound that the letter "D" makes?
Old MacDonald
Sing along with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5iDjbNN1Og
Note! Make a red barn out of paper and staple a zip bag behind it. Use pictures of animals and insert them in the baggie as you sing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
I Had a Bird
Here are some more animal sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT9jznNwJwE
I Had a Bird
Here are some more animal sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT9jznNwJwE
Puppets, Puppets, Puppets!
Invite children to make stick puppets, sack puppets, and envelope puppets of animals and use them as you sing the songs.
