FREEBIE: How You Can Turn Raising Farm Animals Into Science Lessons
Published:
May 1, 2019
Contributor:
Sarita Harbour
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Do you have a child who loves farming? Whether your children live on a farm or just dream about it, farm animals can be a great introduction to a whole new world of homeschool lessons.
In fact, our kids have been so fascinated with homesteading and farming, I began looking for ways to use farm life to catch their interest in other subjects – such as with this free list of farm-themed creative writing and illustration prompts for my elementary students. Yet they wanted more.
That’s why I created this list of 25+ Free Homesteading Printables & Downloads for Kids. It includes links to free resources like:
- a 42-page PDF on caring for eggs and chicks (for second through fifth grade)
- a pig lap book and lesson (Junior Kindergarten through second grade)
- a farm printable pack with 70+ printables (suitable for preschool through second grade)
- a cow unit study and printables (fifth through eighth grade)
- a huge package of 4H swine activities, printables, worksheets, and lessons (third through twelfth grades)
You’ll find a link to it at the bottom of this page.
How Studying Farm Animals Helps Kids Learn About Science
Although studying farm life has lessons to learn in literature, math, and history too (who doesn’t love pioneer studies? ), it’s particularly well-suited for teaching science.
Nutrition, anatomy, and even technology becomes more interesting when applied to caring for cows, pigs, chickens or horses. When a child explores how biology, chemistry, the animal kingdom and even technology impact their favorite farm animals, they can’t help but learn.
Some of the science topics you can teach from studying farm animals include:
- anatomy – parts of each animal
- biology – differences between animal families, classification, breeds
- nutrition – how different feed affects farm animals
- chemistry – especially for older children, calculation and preparation of liquid vitamins
- medicine – antibiotic use in animals, the job of a large animal vet
- animal science – the study of animal husbandry
- life cycle – how domesticated animals fit in our world
With some creativity and imagination, you and your kids will enjoy learning about science as you make farming and homesteading a subject in your homeschool.
You too can turn raising farm animals into science lessons for your own homeschool.
You might also want to check out the NEW Farm Notebook, a companion to Julia Rothman’s Farm Anatomy.
