Big Red Barn Sensory Small World | Still Playing School

Big Red Barn Sensory Small World

We created a fun farm themed sensory small world that would be perfect for a preschool farm unit theme. It includes animals as well as several interesting textures to explore during play.

Farm themed sensory small world play for kids to go with the book Big Red Barn

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We're back for this month's Book Club Play Date featuring Big Red Barn! Big Red Barn is written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Felicia Bond.



I love Bond's sweet artistic style which just adds to this cute and creative stories about farm animals and the big red barn they call their home. 



The animal characters in the book include a rooster, chickens, cows, horses, goats, and a pig. We found matching toy animals for our small world.

Farm Preschool Theme

The story's setting includes the barn, but also a green meadow, piles of hay, and mud for the pigs. We used different shades of green tissue paper as our grass. Our preschooler loved helping me tear the paper to create the field which was also great fine motor work


We used brown Play Doh for the pigs' mud. Our preschooler is on a huge play dough loving kick right now so he stuck the piglets in the pig sty right away!


The cows loved frolicking in our macaroni dry pasta as hay! He loved scattering it all around the tray but we were outside so I didn't mind if he spilled any.


He loved organizing the animals by type. He put all the chickens and roosters together. We made a nest from the pasta for the eggs, too. 


As we explored the different textures of this small world the story came to life again through sensory play! 


Do your kids love farm animals? Have they read Big Red Barn? Would they love to try a small world to go along with the story?



I love that all of these materials were ones that we already had on hand at home!



More ideas for your Big Red Barn book club play date:


Big Red Barn Book Craft from Sugar Aunts 




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2 comments :

  1. Such a fun idea for the hay! This looks so cute!

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  2. What a great idea to bring the story to life! This is a new favorite book in our house so I can't wait to try this as a re-telling activity!

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