Most children love animals, but learning to recognize farm animals and their sounds can also help children get ready to read. 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?
(Make signs for the animals as you sing.)
I had a bird, and the bird pleased me.
I fed my bird by yonder tree.
Bird went, “Tweedle dee dee.” (Open and close index finger and thumb by mouth.)
Cat - "meow, meow" (Pretend to stroke whiskers.)
Dog – “woof-woof” (Pretend to call your dog by patting your leg.)
Pig – “oink, oink” (Put palm of hand under chin and wave fingers.)
Duck – “quack, quack” (Open and close index and middle fingers and thumb by mouth.)
Cow – “moo-moo” (Extend thumb and little finger to look like horns and place on head.)
And here are some picture cards for the song.
http://bit.ly/DrJeanBirdPrintables
Old MacDonald
Sing along with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5iDjbNN1Og
