Barnyard Bingo by Fisher Price has been a huge hit with my preschool and early elementary students this past week. This game was perfect to pair with the farm books I created. For each session, I read one of the farm books again and then the students and I played Barnyard Bingo. I really like using this game in therapy because it targets many different skills such as matching, farm vocabulary terms, color concepts, counting 1-3, simple verbs (open/close), and turn taking with peers. If you haven’t used this game before it’s a great one to add to your collection!
Set Up- The students each get a different color board. Each board has 3 different farm animals on it and the student needs to match both the correct color coin and animal picture to his/her board. Before we start the game I go around and identify what color coin each student needs and we point to each animal on his/her board and say the animal name. So for the blue board I point to each animal as I say “cow, pig, chicken”.
I go first and say “my turn” as I point to myself. I say “open” or “open door” as I open the barn door. I take out the coin and ask “does it match?” or “is is the same?” If the coin doesn’t match I say “not the same” and “in barn” as I put the coin back in the top of the barn. Then I ask “who’s turn?” I have the student say “my turn” or touch the my turn card if the student is nonverbal. I have the student also say “open” or touch the open symbol on the core board before the student opens the barn door. If the coin matches the student places the coin on his/her board but if the coin doesn’t match the student puts the coin back in the barn. I again have the student say “in”, “in barn” or touch the “in” symbol on the core board before he/she drops the coin back in the barn.
The game continues this way until all the students have his/her coins on their board. You can also include lots of “wh” question during the game such as “what did you get?”, “what does the cow say?”, “what color is the pig?”, or “where does the chicken live?” HAVE FUN!
If Barnyard Bingo is too difficult for some of you students try this Fisher Price Piggy Bank activity –Fisher Price Laugh & Learn: Learning Piggy Bank. This is another good resource for your collection.
This activity is great for color concepts, counting, following direction, simple verbs (open/close), simple prepositions (in/out), and turn taking with peers. You can vary the activity depending on your students’ abilities. For some students I keep it really simple and just focus on one or two concepts during the activity. For example, I might work on the student signing or saying “more” before I give him/her another coin to put in the piggy bank. I may work on the concept “in” and have the student say “in” as he/she drops the coin in the piggy bank. You can have the students work on passing the pig to one another to help understand the concept of turn-taking. To work on following direction, you can hold up 2 coins and give the student a direction such as “take green” or “green in pig”. I keep my language really simple during the activity but I provide verbal models throughout the activity such as “open” as I open the door, “out” as I pull out the coins”, “in” as I put a coin in the piggy bank, or “my turn” as I take a turn in the activity. Even though this is a simple activity there is so much language you can model during the lesson.
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