Farm Animals in Spanish: A Preschool Lesson Plan
Inside: A preschool lesson on la granja: farm animals in Spanish, with free printable and digital resources you can use today!
Farm animals are the perfect beginning lesson for Spanish learners.
Animals are interesting and familiar to kids, and it’s easy to come up with little stories and songs in Spanish!
Below, I’ll share hands-on activities and specific resources to make your lesson planning a breeze. I designed these lessons with a small group or classroom in mind, but they can work for homeschool as well.
Contents:
1. La granja Vocabulary List
2. Free Printables for Farm Animals
3. Five Activities for La Granja with Preschoolers
4. Videos and Songs
Lesson 3 Goals: I can name some farm animals.
Main Vocabulary: dice, el caballo, el perro, el gato, la gallina, el cerdo, el pato
Unit 1 from my Preschool Series Los Pollitos Dicen teaches the farm animals to Spanish learners. It’s free and you can grab it right here:
La Granja Spanish Vocabulary
My lesson plan includes the following farm animals and domestic animals:
- horse – el caballo
- dog – el perro
- cat – el gato
- hen – la gallina
- chick – el pollito
- pig – el cerdo
- duck – el pato
- cow – la vaca
Here are more common terms for la granja you may want to know:
- sheep – la oveja
- turkey – el pavo
- goat – la cabra
- donkey – el burro
- rooster – el gallo
- rabbit – el conejo
- goose – el ganzo
- bee – la abeja
- farm – la granja
- barn – el granero
- tractor – el tractor
- farmer – el/la granjero/a
- hay – el heno
- rake – el rastrillo
- garden – la huerta
- field – el campo
Free Printables for Farm Animals in Spanish
They are included in my Unit Packet for Free, but I’ll list them here just in case you want to grab an individual activity:
- Free Farm Animal Bingo Game in Spanish
- Farm Animals Flashcards
- Free mini-book: Peek-a-boo Farm Animals
- Free mini-book: What do the Animals Say?
Five Easy Activities
Below, I will describe several hands-on activities and games you can use for learning the farm animals.
Here are ideas for different activities that work with preschool or elementary beginners.
Activity 1: Bingo
Learn the names of the farm animals by playing Bingo (the printable is above). At first, you can use the flashcards as pictures when you call out the names of the animals.
Here is a video of the first eight animals, if you are using Unit 1.
Los animales de la granja
Activity 2: ¿Qué hay en la bolsa?
Have a bag ready with toy farm animals inside. Seat everyone in a circle, and let the kids take turns putting their hands inside the bag. They have to put their hand in the bag and guess what animal is inside just by feeling it (in Spanish or English).
Once they guess the animal, we talk about it for a minute in Spanish. I might ask the class,
– ¿Es un caballo? ¡No! ¿Es un pollito? ¡Sí! ¿El pollito dice <muu>? ¡No! ¿El pollito dice <pío>? ¡Sí!, etc.
(Some of the students can’t name the animals in Spanish yet.I don’t worry about output yet–- the whole activity is designed as a way to catch their attention and get more input.)
Activity 3: Pato, pato, pollito
Play Duck, Duck, Goose as Pato, pato, pollito (or ganzo if you prefer). It takes a minute to get the hang of with little ones, but it’s been a big hit in my little class!
Once everyone can play, save this one for a brain break during the rest of the year.
Activity 4: Watch the Video
This video is called Buenos días, granja.
Activity 5: Mini-Books
Color and read the mini-book ¿Cómo dicen los animales? This mini-book gets in lots of dice repetitions, and can be sent home for extra reinforcement.
Videos and Songs About La Granja:
This song from Calico Spanish is great. In this version, they say “hace” instead of “dice” (I believe that’s how it is in Spain):
Los Pollitos Dicen
My first Spanish Preschool Units are based on this widely popular Spanish song. It’s familiar song to Spanish speakers and includes simple language for learners, too.
Luli TV has a whole series of videos about each animal in Spanish. These are great for narrating over in simple Spanish, or letting kids see what Spanish words they can hear and understand. WW
El Viejo MacDonald Tenía Una Granja
Old MacDonald Had a Farm is of course a classic, in Spanish or English! This one is nice because it includes a variety of animals.
La Vaca Lola
La Vaca Lola is another very popular song in Spanish with simple lyrics.
none of these videos are working!
Thank you SO MUCH for all of these amazing resources! I have been using them during my first year teaching this year, and they have been HUGELY helpful!! I was wondering — do you have an archive of all of your facebook lives somewhere? I searched on facebook and tried to on the website when I was looking for the fb live of you doing a MovieTalk, but couldn’t find it! Again, THANK YOU!
Thanks a lot for all you do to help us teaching Spanish to preschoolers!, all your ideas, materials and tips have been such a great support for my classes.
You are awesome!
Love your work, as always!
I am a little bit confused by the Qué animal es book…I myself can’t figure out the rationale for putting the pictures over the given animals. The illustration shows something about what they eat, but that isn’t represented in the pictures…
It’s still a fun book to use though!