Imagination Station: How To Play Farm With Your Littles
Imagination is hard! Sometimes being great at playtime can be a daunting task so welcome to the Working on Mom series of guided play time to help make playtime with your toddlers easier. This may not work for everyone, but sometimes all you need for great playtime is just a little inspiration. Scroll to the bottom for a free specific play guide that takes you and your little through a super fun farm play session.
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Our favorite farm toys:
To start here’s a list of all the best toys we love playing with when we play farm. I especially like being able to mix and match so we don’t get bored playing the same thing over and over.
Little People Farm
There’s actually multiple versions of this toy, but linked below is the one we have that we’ve loved. Feel free to hop on Amazon or head to a local retailer and check out the other versions to see what you’d like best!
Little People Tractor
This one is a great add on to the LP farm as you can use them together to create a full scene. In addition, it comes with the dog that allows you to expand you play (see below for dog farm game ideas).
Farm Puzzle
There are all sorts of farm puzzles out there, so don’t feel limited to the one I’m recommending, but the Mud Puppy puzzles (including the one linked below) are our favorite toddler puzzles! We own this puzzle in every pattern and the farm one was our first purchase! I think they’re the perfect level of fun but challenging that it stays interesting for a long time.
Farm Sensory Bin
This one was a total hit for us! Sensory bins are one of my favorites because they offer a sensory experience, independent learning, and fun for all ages. Feel free to make your own, or if you’re not up for the challenge we loved the one linked below.
Mini Farm Animals
If you have a farm lover you need as many animals as possible. For some reason, kids love mini ones! Now, if you are tired of losing tiny pieces, this one may not be for you. That being said, this is a much loved toy of my son’s and his favorite imagination go to toy collection.
Crochet Farm Animals
Stuffed animals or crocheted animals are also a fun add on to any imagination play. One reason I love these are because I can make them myself! There are so many videos or patterns online that show you exactly how to do it and they’re so cute and well loved by your kids.
Rocking Horse:
Let me tell you, this gift made my son’s second Christmas unforgettable. If you’re looking for something your toddler will do for hours it’s this. My mom surprised us all with this, and it takes rocking horse to the next level. If you have a farm lover and are looking to splurge, look no further.
Cowboy Hat
Nothing says farm imagination play like a mini cowboy hat for you kiddo. Especially combined with that epic rocking horse, you can’t go wrong with play time.
Melissa and Doug horse stable
Melissa and Doug horse trailer
Melissa and Doug wooden barn
(Just an FYI if you’re looking to purchase the Melissa and Doug horse sets and try to play interactively with all of them, all of the horses are different sizes. We do love all of them but we originally bought them hoping to use them as a set but none of the horses are the same size.)
Tara’s Treasures Farm Animals
These toys are a little pricey, but soooo much fun for bringing your play time to life. They’re especially beneficial if you want to support a small business while ditching the plastic toys. You can also use code SIDNEY at checkout for 10% off your order!
Farm Books:
Farm Bottoms
Hello Farm
Imaginative Play Ideas:
I’ll be honest, pretend play is the number one way my toddler wants to play farm! I wasn’t always the best at imagination play so I have had to work hard at getting into it! This is a list of ideas of games we’ve played with farm so we could keep the play time unique instead of repeating the same game over and over. I separate the play into two categories: realistic imagination play (pretending things that actually happen), or creative imagination play (silly little creative games that aren’t very realistic).
Realistic Play:
Here’s a list of our favorite realistic farm scenarios to incorporate into our imagination play:
- Pretending to feed the farm animal toys
- Pretending to pet the animals
- Pretending to “tuck them into bed” or put them away into our farm toy!
- Pretending to BE farm animals. (Horsie rides anyone??)
- Pretending to plant vegetables
- Pretending that animals are eating all of our plants!
- Pretending that our characters are riding the horses.
- Pretending the animals are jumping over fences and running away and the farmer has to go get them.
- Pretending that mommy animals are taking care of baby animals.
Creative Play:
- the animals keep sneaking on to the farm roof- the farmer then yells “WHAT?! NOT AGAIN!!” and has to climb up to get them.
- Pretending to take the farm animals camping!
- Pretending to take the farm animals to visit the zoo or the jungle.
- Pretending one animal is trying to act like another one! (Example: the pig REALLY wants to herd sheep like the puppy!) Get silly with it!
- Pretending the animals have to learn to share.
- Pretending the animals are running away from the barn and need to be found!
Farm songs:
We LOVE singing!
- Old McDonald Has a Farm
- BINGO
- 5 Little Ducks (or make it five little horses or five little cows!)
Farm Adventures:
Visit a Farm!
Other Farm Play Activities:
Homemade Farm Sensory Bin:
You don’t have to spend money to create your own sensory bin! I’ve done it with a few different things I have at home. I’ve used uncooked oats, which can be used both for sensory play and imagination play (food for the animals). I always had an absolute blast with my son filling up our sensory table with oats or uncooked rice to pretend feed the animals, and then created a “mud” bath that we had horses roll around in out of hot coco and a bit of water! Finally, we added a big water station for the horses to use to get cleaned up in. While this was certainly a messy activity (what good sensory bin isn’t?), it entertained my son for an hour! He thought it was so funny that the horses needed a bath over and over again. If you’re looking for a good sensory table I’ll link the one we use here!
Hide and Go Seek Farm Adventure!
Duck Duck Goose
Overall, our favorites were the farm sensory bin and the Melissa and Doug barn! If you’re looking just for the big dingers those were it for us.
Guided play guide:
Use this to guide you through a play session to take the stress of the imagination off of your back!
Realistic animal imagination play: feeding, grooming, riding horses, putting the animals in stalls. (If you have a dog you can have your little brush the dog and pretend it’s a horse!)
Transition to play with-
Song: sing old McDonald has a farm (have the animals come out to make their own sounds for more involved farm fun) Use this time to set up the next game without pausing the fun.
Teaching moment!: teach about how dogs can help herd sheep or cattle and how animals can have jobs too! Play sheep herding!
Song: BINGO (this is perfect while you still have the dog out as you can pretend he’s Bingo!)
imagination play; silly time: pretend to be farm animals yourself! Then take your favorite toy animals and make them do silly things (I.e. climb the roof of the farm)
Song: five little horses (perfect if you have horses pretended to be on the barn and you can pretend the farmer is singing this as they go missing on top of the barn and he has to go get them)
Imagination play: take the farm animals on a field trip somewhere else in the house and let them “explore”.
Activity Time: farm sensory bin time! I have a sensory bin I ordered off Amazon and totally loved listed above if you want to keep things simple, or you could make your own. I once mixed hot coco powder with a little bit of water in a bin to make a mud puddle for farm animals and my son LOVED it. (Warning: this was such a hassle to clean up after).
Imagination play: tuck all the animals away for a nap. This is a perfect transition out of farm playing as it give you a reason to clean the animals (bath before bed), and clean up the whole set up!
Activity Time: do some farm animal coloring pages! This keeps the theme while shifting the whole play session to something else entirely. Now that all the toys are put away and your kid is focused on coloring you can step away, change the theme, or use this to transition to something else entirely. (Maybe it’s little one’s time to take a bath and get ready for bed).
It’s not a script, but this should give you the layout to a full play session so you don’t have to sit there and think, “well what now?” I LOVE playing with my son, but sometimes I just sit there for a minute thinking exactly that. What now?? So mix and match anything I suggested and add in your own, but this guide is a great place to start for a long play time.