Taking “part” in the study of animals

Teaching your child how to identify animal body parts with Farm World Snacks

Children are curious at heart when it comes to exploring all that the world has to offer. Animals play an important role as part of a child’s learning environment as it stimulates their senses, improves social interaction, reduces stress and anxiety, and helps to increase a child’s motivation to learn and explore.

Understanding animals helps your child to learn about empathy, relationships, nature, the environment and teaches a respect for the way that animals move by teaching children to understand the difference between a human body’s mechanics and that of an animal.

Don’t worry – you don’t have to fetch fluffy the cat to teach your child about an animal’s body parts. We’ll show you how to go about it with these fun and interactive activities, which is sure to bring loads of fun, problem solving, cognitive thinking and discovery into play. The best part – no live animals needed!

Here are 3 fun ways how you can teach your child about animal body parts.

What you’ll need:

Farm World Fruit String packs in the Kluk the chicken®, Bisi the cow®, Ned the horse® and Willow the sheep®

Activity 1: Unfolding the fun

Take each Farm World character one-by-one and ask your child to unfold Kluk the chicken’s® comb and wings; Bisi the cow’s® horns and ears, Ned the horse’s® main and ears and Willow the sheep’s® ears and wool. As they unfold each body part, say the name of the body part aloud until your child repeats it after you. Once they’ve repeated the words of each animal, reward them with delicious Farm World Fruit Strings by asking them to pull the “tongue” of each animal. This activity not only stimulates play, cognitive thinking and social interaction but allows your child to develop motor skills by unfolding each Farm World animal character.

Activity 2: Find the match

If your child has siblings or some friends over, you can cut up the foldable parts of each Farmworld animal and ask the children to each take one part (adults can join in too if you need more players). Then set a timer of 10 seconds and allow them to find their “match” i.e. Kluk’s wings needs to find his comb. After 10 seconds have passed, ask the children to come forward to the animal character boxes – those who have matched up with their correct animal body part will get to eat their Farm World Fruit Strings in their chosen character as a reward. The losing team can either have another go or they can have a stand-off of the best imitation of their animal’s sound to see who gets to eat their animal character’s Fruit Strings.

Activity 3: Hokey Pokey like the Farm World friends

Add in some movement with a twist on the classic Hokey Pokey while teaching your children more about animal body parts. This activity is ideal for children who are a little bit older and teaches memory and critical thinking skills while keeping them fit and having fun. Whichever Farm World friend you choose – the children will need to formulate a Hokey Pokey song around the chosen animal.

Ask the kids to hold hands and form a circle.
Place the Farm World friend in the centre of the circle and tell the children to go the moment the animal has been placed in the centre.
If for e.g. you’ve chosen Kluk the chicken®, the kids will need to sing the Hokey Pokey song using animal body parts instead of human body parts. I.e., “You put your right wing in, you put your left wing out and shake it all about. Do the Hokey Pokey and fly yourself around, that’s what it’s all about. Put your beak in, put your tail feathers out and shake it all about….”
If one of the children calls a human body part – they are out.
You can repeat this with each Farm World Character to increase the difficulty level
Last one standing gets to enjoy their Farm World Fruit Strings

These interactive activities allow you to open a conversation with your child on how animals and humans use their external body parts to survive and how they use these different body parts to do the things that humans can’t do. This helps your child to understand the way the world works and cultivates a deep respect for animals and the environment.

Looking for more fun and engaging activities to stimulate your child’s love for learning?

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