This is part of my Fifteen Minute Focus Series. It’s a follow up to Farm Animal Science. All you need is some farm animal counters (Amazon affiliate link) and copies of my free, printable worksheet below (one copy per kid).

Objective: children will be able to sort objects into six piles by color, and then into six piles by type of animal.

Distributing Animals

If you’re working with just a few kids, you could put the animals in a cloth bag, then have them each take turns pulling out 12 animals, without looking. If you’re working with a larger group, you could just quickly hand each of them ~6 – 8 animals. Or you may want to count them out in advance, making enough batches of animals for each kid (put in a cup, dish, or baggie). If you’re really committed to the perfect sorting activity, you could make sure each kid has one of each animal, and one of each color, but that’s a lot of set-up time!

Observe / Compare / Contrast

Some core science competencies are observation, communication, and sorting. We’ll practice those now.

Have a conversation about the animals. What do they notice about them? How are the animals alike? How are they different? Do they have adult animals and baby animals? Which animal lays eggs? Which animal(s) make milk that humans consume?

Sorting / Math

Hand each child a worksheet, with the color side up. Have them sort their animals by color. Are they missing any colors? What color do they have the most of?

Now, flip the paper over and sort them by what type of animal they are. Are they missing? Who has the most of one particular animal?

Extensions

This is a pretty quick activity. You can extend it with farm songs or books, or teaching them how to draw one farm animal, like this cow.