Farm animals for toddlers and farm animal sounds are very motivating and fun! Farm animal toys come in a range of sizes and shapes. Here you’ll find farm animal activities and speech therapy ideas to include in your play with your toddler at home.

Farm animal activities pair well with learning new words, engaging with fun farm animal sounds, and listening to short phrases. Follow your toddler’s lead by watching what they’re interested in, waiting, and listening. This helps your toddler explore the interactions with you and language that is meaningful for them.

Related Post: Child-Led Play

5 Farm Animal Activities for Toddlers

Incorporating speech therapy ideas into farm animal activities is lots of fun! Here are 5 farm animal activities to try at home.

1 – Hide Farm Animal Toys

Hide farm animal toys around the room, in a sensory bin, in the garden or under boxes. This creates anticipation and excitement.

Start by hiding the farm animals for toddlers together. Start by saying, ‘let’s hide the animals’. Walk around the room with your box of farm animals. Talk about where you’re hiding them using language at your toddler’s language level.

This can be labelling with the single word “cow” or using two-word combinations “cow’s under”. If your toddler uses short phrases and sentences, you can model “the cow’s under here.” Accompany your spoken language with gestures, signs or the farm animal toys.

Sing a hiding song, like “where oh where oh where is the cow?” Then go on a hunt, looking for all the animals.

When you find each animal, label the animal and the farm animal sounds: “moo, cow”. If your toddler can label the animal, use a sentence starter like “here’s the…” and “a cow says…”

These are some of my favourite farm animal toys:

2 – Farm Animal Puzzles

Farm animal puzzles are often used in my speech therapy sessions. Puzzles support your toddler’s matching skills and introduce new vocabulary. Start by putting all the pieces in a small bag.

Point to an animal and name it. “let’s find the… sheep”. Pull out the sheep and label it again, “here’s the sheep”. Incorporate the farm animal sounds by saying “baa”. Change the volume, pitch or intonation when modelling and imitating the farm animal sounds.

Offer your toddler a choice by saying “what’s next?” Pause and if your toddler does not share their choice, offer a choice from two options. This could be saying “horse or pig?” while holding up both animals. Wait for your toddler’s response. Name it again when your toddler chooses, e.g., “pig…. I want pig”

Have you seen these Melissa and Doug farm animal puzzles:

3 – Sing a Song about Farm Animals

“Old MacDonald had a farm” is sung a lot in my speech therapy sessions. The repetition of the farm animals for toddlers helps with learning new words in a fun and interactive way.

Once your toddler is familiar with the song, pause before “e-i-e-i-o”. Also try pausing before naming the animal and the farm animal sounds. This gives your toddler the opportunity to join in if they want to.

Here’s the song –

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o

And on that farm he had a [animal], e-i-e-i-o

With a [animal sound] here, and a [animal sound] there,

Here a [animal sound], there a [animal sound],

Everywhere a [animal sound]

Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o

4 – Wash the Farm Animals

Set up a small water play area where your toddler can wash their farm animal toys. You can use a bowl of water or a spray bottle. Model concepts like ‘wet’ (e.g., “pig’s wet”) and ‘dirty’ (e.g., “pig’s dirty”), action words like ‘wash’ (e.g., “wash the pig”), and bath items like ‘soap’ (e.g., “we need soap”).

Get a towel after the farm animals have finished their bath. Model actions like ‘dry’ (e.g., “dry horse”), describe parts of the animal (e.g., “dry horse’s face”), and concepts like ‘clean’ (e.g., “horse’s clean”).

Try these speech therapy ideas when engaging with water play in this related post: Let’s Dive into Water Play

Farm Animal Activities Words

Combine one of the concept or action words with the farm animal below. For example, ‘eat chicken,’ dry chicken’ and ‘clean chicken’.

5 – Magnetic Farm Animal Activities

Have you tried magnetic farm animals for toddlers? Magnetic animals can be stuck on the fridge, the magnetic board, or a magnetic book. Name the animals and farm animal sounds as you get them out of a box. Repeat their names and sounds as you stick them around the house.

These farm animal activities are fantastic for modelling location words like ‘on’ and ‘in’. If you’re modelling single words, this would be “on”. If you’re modelling two-word combinations, this would be “cow on”. If you’re modelling short phrases and sentences, this would be “it’s on the fridge”.

Take turns choosing which animals you’ll put on the fridge. You can repeat this interaction by taking all the animals “off” (e.g., “cow off”). Then you could start all over again!

Here are some of my favourite magnetic farm animal toys:

This post was about farm animals for toddlers, including farm animal toys and farm animal sounds. Which speech therapy idea will you be including in your farm animal activities this week?