Hi,

I am sure you already know about our “Show and tell” series. They are our much-loved posts.

The last one was all about celebrating Diwali and now this is our sixth post.

One of the first topic our children get introduced to is?

Animals.

We teach them about so many things related to animals. How they look?, what sounds they make? What do they do? and so on. Most of their stories also have animals in them and so do the nursery rhymes. Also the animation characters would be based mostly on animals. Children identify with them.

Animals form an integral part of our kid’s childhood. For this very reason animals provide the perfect way to teach your child so many values. Respect, kindness, gratitude, patience, empathy and also about the circle of life.

Some of us are animal lovers and some of us are scared of animals however, I see no reason why anyone should have the right to blatantly and unreasonably abuse any animal.

By all means, avoid that stray dog if it scares you but, to hit a dog for your pleasure is a strict NO. When you do not stop your children from such acts, you are in a way supporting his or her behavior to abuse for pleasure.

With domestic animals it is mostly true that If you leave them alone, they leave you alone.

So, coming to our show and tell now, the topic given by the school was: Recognition, characteristics and care of Domestic animals.

We tweaked it a little to Recognition, how the animals help us and care of Domestic animals.

Like before we have kept the charts simple for understanding and also hand written notes because my daughter identifies with them more than a printed form. We have also used less craft here and more pictures. Some of them we cut out from our old Magic pot magazines.

I) Recognition of Domestic animals.

We divided a big chart paper in two. This is part one.

Aruja was learning the names of the baby animals so we thought we would make this a part of our charts. She is now in the phase where in her world everything always exists in a combination of a mamma & a baby.

Can you spot the alphabet stickers we used?

We did not have stickers for all the alphabet hence, we just used the ones we had. It helped in identifying the letters.

Part two had these animals.

We added simple things to our chart to make it look appealing. To fill up the space and look colorful we have added flowers all over.

We have highlighted for you with blue arrows all the small significant additions to our chart. We used wood shavings as hay for the goat and the sheep. We used her favorite character Peppa Pig to highlight pigs love muddy puddles.

When we use our child’s photo, they find it very appealing and also it helps them identify with the concept better. We had recently visited a farm with a few days old baby goat. We just loved that experience. So, we added Aruja’s photo with the kid.

Also, she found the family photo below very amusing. Did you too?

II) How our domestic animals help us?

So, we started with a picture of a barn. We covered how a dog helps us guard our house. We used simple pictures to show how we get milk and therefore milk products.

We introduced some new words like ploughing and cow dung. Aruja found it fascinating that a cow’s potty was made into cakes and then used as a manure to grow healthy plants. I think su-su, shi-shi, potty are some of the favorite words in a child’s dictionary. You too?

We used simple pom-poms and pictures to show how sheep gave us wool which helped us make sweaters. Cats kept the mice away and Hens gave us nutritious eggs. Once again we included a picture of Aruja riding a horse. And we drew an alarm clock for a rooster.

III) Caring for your Domestic animals

This was the third chart and I m sure that by this time a child would be either tired or impatient. Hence, we made this chart with minimum words and only important pictures.

Take a look at the detailed view below. You can see little notes written on separate small chits for effect. Also liberal use of heart and flower stickers to make the entire chart more appealing.

It is important to take care of your pets. To provide them with their basic requirement of food, water and shelter. Along with that you also need to care for the well-being of your animal and this means saying “NO” to fire crackers which may hurt or scare your animals. Just like you visit your doctor when you are sick, It is important to visit a VET when your animals are sick.

We included these pictures because we simply loved that dog house and the picture of this dog enjoying his bath.  And now for the most important point.

And this is not only applicable for animals. It is applicable for family, relatives and even friends. Yes?

I just loved the way Aruja was hugging that buffalo baby.

Now, for some more amazing information on Domestic animals which helped us too.

1) We loved this video. You can click here to find the lyrics & the karaoke version of this song too. Thanks to my search for this video I found this amazing blog by Olga to teach English to children. Do check it out.

2) We found these amazing Preschool farm pack printable from Creativepreschoolresources. Heather has done made such a lovely printable. You must download it.

3) We used free farm animal cliparts from clipartpanda. We printed them and stuck them all over our charts.

These resources would definitely be useful to you too if you plan on making any projects or activities based on farm animals.

Do let us know if you enjoyed our post and found it useful. You do know how much we await your feedback, don’t you?

And don’t forget to check our other show and tell if you haven’t already. Topics covered:

Celebrating Diwali

Sense organs

Community helper – Fireman

Seasons

Transport

Thank you ,

Poornima

PS: Images credit: Google images