Barn and Animal Friends by Mariana Coan @mariana_coan

If you're an elementary school teacher or homeschooling parent, you know how challenging it can be to come up with different arts and crafts activities to keep your kids interested and engaged with learning. Using simple materials like paper, scissors, glue and coloring materials, you can use  DIY farm animal activities to spark students' imagination and curiosity.

Benefits of Fun Farm Kids’ Crafts

These farm animal crafts can be used as a teaching resource, a visual aid for storytelling or a fun way to decorate your classroom or homeschooling space.

Farm craft ideas can be an excellent resource for an educational farm unit. Using paper crafts to facilitate academic growth can help engage children in learning. For example, when learning about farm animals, creating farm crafts of different animals can help students remember their names, characteristics and habitats. 

A farm craft is also a great hands-on activity that can help students develop their fine motor skills, creativity and problem-solving abilities. While younger students may not be able to use knives to achieve precision cuts, making paper crafts involves a lot of problem-solving, such as figuring out how to create a specific shape or joining different pieces together. These activities help develop critical thinking skills in students.

Farm Craft Step-by-Step Tutorial 

Excel Blades is excited to introduce our new blogger Mariana Coan. Mariana is an illustrator and paper artist from São Paulo, Brazil. She has been working as an illustrator for the last 13 years and has her first book coming out this year!  

For Mariana's first blog, she wanted to make it fun and easy for the family to enjoy.  Mariana has created three of the cutest printable farm-themed templates for you to try your paper craft skills, including a barn, a cow and a pig. 

Mooooove over game night because we've officially made it craft night!

Supplies

• Barn Template
• Animal Template
• K18 Grip On Knife
• Glue
• Construction paper (Mariana uses red paper for the barn and pink paper for the animals)
• Cutting Mat

The Barn

Step 1: Print out the two barn templates on heavy cardstock or construction paper. Use the heaviest cardstock your printer will allow — the thicker the paper, the more durable the paper crafts will be, allowing for hours of farm-themed fun. 

Step 2: Cut out the barn, holes and windows (solid lines only). Cut the doors along the solid lines only so they can open and close. While the template is still flat, you can paint the barn’s roof shingles brown and the door and window frames white. Wait until the paint is completely dry before folding the barn into its 3D shape. 

Step 3: Fold the barn on the dotted lines. When folding the paper, make sure the dotted lines cannot be seen from the front of the barn. (Templates 1 and 2)

Step 4: Fold the front of the barn (windows and door) so that it faces you. The bottom of the barn should be the big square. Start to put glue on the tabs you bent that are on the front of the barn and attach it to the sides. (Template 1)

Step 5: Glue the back of the barn to the rest of the barn to close it off from behind. (Template 2)

Step 6: Grab the last piece of the barn that you cut from template 2 and glue it to the side of the barn.  Now our barn is complete with a handle for easy transportation. 

The Cow Craft and Pig Craft

Step 1: Print out the animal template.

Step 2: Cut the animals out by following the solid lines.  Don't forget to cut out the space between the legs.

Step 3:  Draw eyes and patterns on the animals or stick colored tissue paper or glitter to add texture. This can help your students personalize each animal. You could also have them write the animal's name on the underside of the template to practice handwriting and spelling.

Step 4: Fold the animals along the dotted lines.  Make sure the dotted lines show on the inside of the animals.

Step 5: Glue the tabs you folded together (only by the animals’ feet).

Step 6: Now your animals are ready to go to the farm!

Create Fun Craft Activities with Excel Blades

The possibilities are endless with high-quality Excel Blades gear. Try creating an entire farm scene, including chicken, goat and sheep crafts, and use your paper farm crafts for other kids' activities like singing nursery rhymes or small world play. Explore the complete range of Excel Blades craft supplies today!