F is for Farmer — Circle Time Activities

For our preschool studies this week, we had a great circle time lesson about F is for farmer. The lesson involved songs, fine motor skills building and good fun. We made really cute, paper bag hand puppets and then had fun singing with them. This was a fun lesson where we emphasized that F is for Farmer and enjoyed some fun circle time activities.

Paper Bag Hand Puppets

Objective 1:
Help the children develop their fine motor skills necessary for writing.

Materials:
Small, lunch sized, paper bag for each student
Animal cut out pattern, click here for a printable of the pattern.
Construction paper in the colors of the animal being made
Scissors for each child
Glue stick for each child

Preparation:

After printing out the animal patterns glue or tape each piece of the pattern onto the corresponding color of construction paper.  For example: eyes should be on white and black construction paper, inner ears and tongues should be on pink. Spots should be on black, white, and brown. Feathers should be on yellow, orange, and white, and so one.

Process:
First, let the children pick which animal they want to create. Hand them those pieces.

Tell them to follow the lines and cut out each item in their animal’s pile.

Next, help them glue their cut out pieces onto their paper bags. Be sure to help the children know where each piece is intended to go. They will want the puppets to look like the animals they represent, so helping them know where to place things is a good thing. Glue the legs under the folded side of the bag. And be sure to glue the lower mouth under the bottom fold of the bag. This will help the puppet “sing” later.

Once the animals are all put together, it’s time for a Circle Time puppet show.

Puppet Show:
This puppet show is really simple. The puppet animals are all from of Old MacDonald’s Farm. They join the circle and the song when the circle time leader sings their name.

For example: When the leader sings “And on his farm he had a pig” then the child with the pig puppet comes and joins the circle. The child is the only person who sings “oink, oink, here”. This allows every child to have a “speaking” part. While they are singing, they should use their puppets to “act” out the part.

The song leader continues adding in animals until all the children are part of the farm and sing their sound.

Then on the final verse, the song leader goes through all the animals on the farm and lets the animals make their sound. It’s a great way to incorporate singing and turn taking into circle time and it’s a bit different from the normal song and story at circle time.

My children had a great time making the puppets and it took them almost an hour. I needed to help some of the younger children. Anyone under 4 will struggle a little with the cutting. But everyone enjoyed the gluing and all the kids were glad to have suggestions about how to put the pieces together again. It was a really fun way to spend the afternoon – and hearing the kids make the animal sounds was really fun.