Farm animal crafts for kids are the perfect combination of skill-building and fun for the 10+ age group. These are no longer simple paper plate crafts from years past, enabling tweens and teens to create something they’ll even be proud to display.
To add an educational element, each theme features a brief and fun fact that complements the craft and makes learning even more enjoyable.
Join me and let’s take a look at age-appropriate farm-themed crafts that pay homage to their growing skills and yet still address their continued love of animals!
Farm Animal Crafts for Older Elementary (Ages 10-12)
Sock Pig Puppet
Materials:
- Pink sock
- Pink felt
- Black buttons or googly eyes
- Pink pom-pom for nose
- Needle and thread (with adult supervision) or fabric glue
- Scissors
- Pink pipe cleaners
Instructions:
- Place the sock over your hand with the heel facing up (this will be the pig’s snout)
- Cut two triangle shapes from pink felt for ears
- Sew or glue the ears to the top of the sock
- Attach buttons or googly eyes
- Glue on a pink pom-pom for the nose
- Cut small pieces of pink pipe cleaner and attach them to the nose for nostrils
- Optional: add a curly tail made from pipe cleaner at the back
Pig Particulars: Pigs are incredibly intelligent animals with some abilities greater than those of dogs and even toddlers! They know their names, can play simple video games using a specialized controller, and solve rather complex puzzles.
Paper Mache Chicken
Materials:
- Balloon
- Newspaper strips
- Paper mache paste (flour and water mix)
- Red, orange, yellow, and white paint
- Construction paper
- Feathers (optional)
- Glue
- Scissors
Instructions:
- Blow up a balloon to desired size
- Cover with several layers of paper mache strips, leaving a small area uncovered where the balloon is tied
- Let dry completely (24+ hours)
- Pop and remove the balloon
- Paint the body white
- Cut a red comb shape and orange beak from construction paper
- Paint or attach yellow legs
- Add eyes with paint or googly eyes
- Optional: glue on real feathers for texture
Chicken Chatter: Chickens can remember and recognize over 100 different faces of people or chickens! They are also the closest living relatives of the T-Rex dinosaur. Mother hens cluck to their chicks while they are still in eggs, and the embryos chirp inside the shell.
Needle Felted Sheep (With Adult Supervision)
Materials:
- Wool roving in white or black
- Felting needles (with adult supervision)
- Foam pad for felting
- Black and pink wool for details
- Googly eyes (optional)
- Glue
Instructions:
- Roll wool roving into a ball for the body
- Using the felting needle, poke repeatedly to compact wool (adult supervision required)
- Form a smaller ball for the head and attach to body by felting them together
- Add small amounts of black wool for the face and legs
- Add small bits of pink wool for the inner ears and nose
- Continue felting until the sheep holds its shape
- Glue on googly eyes or use black wool to create eyes
Sheep Smarts: Sheep are so much more intelligent than they are given credit for! They can recognize and remember about 50 sheep faces for years. They also identify human faces and can tell if a person is happy, sad, or angry depending on their face.
Wooden Spoon Barn Animals
Materials:
- Wooden spoons (one per animal)
- Acrylic paint in various colors
- Felt scraps
- Yarn
- Googly eyes
- Craft glue
- Small rubber bands
- Pipe cleaners
- Paintbrushes
Instructions:
- Paint the bowl of the wooden spoon in the base color of your chosen animal (pink for pig, white for sheep, etc.)
- Paint the handle in a complementary color
- Once dry, use felt to create ears, snouts, or beaks
- Add yarn for manes or wool
- Use pipe cleaners for tails, horns, or whiskers
- Glue googly eyes onto the face
- Add details with smaller paintbrushes
- Create a display stand by decorating a shoebox as a barn
Spoon-tacular Facts: Farmers have been using wooden spoons for centuries! Before plastic, wooden spoons and other utensils were hand-carved in the winter when there was less work to be done in the fields.
Farm Animal String Art
Materials:
- Small wooden board or thick cardboard
- Small nails with flat heads (or pushpins for cardboard)
- Hammer (adult supervision required)
- String or embroidery floss in various colors
- Animal silhouette templates
- Pencil
- Paint or stain (optional)
Instructions:
- Print or draw a simple farm animal silhouette (cow, chicken, pig, etc.)
- Optional: paint or stain the wooden board and let dry
- Position the template on the board and trace the outline
- Place nails/pins along the outline about 1/2 inch apart
- With adult help, hammer nails partially in (or push pins into cardboard)
- Remove the paper template
- Choose a color of string and tie it securely to one nail
- Wrap string around nails, creating patterns inside the animal shape
- Finish by tying off securely to a nail
String Theory: Some of the earliest cave paintings show wild horses and cattle that early human beings hunted. As agriculture developed, animals began making their marks on pottery, fabric, and wooden carvings as symbols of prosperity and wealth.
Recycled Material Donkey
Materials:
- Cardboard tubes (paper towel or toilet paper rolls)
- Gray or brown construction paper or paint
- Small cardboard box for body
- Black yarn for mane and tail
- Googly eyes
- Black marker
- Glue and tape
- Scissors
- Cardboard scraps for ears
Instructions:
- Cover the small box with gray/brown paper or paint it
- Cut cardboard tubes to appropriate lengths for legs and neck
- Cover tubes with matching paper or paint
- Attach legs to the bottom of the box with tape and glue
- Attach neck tube to one end of the box
- Create a head shape from cardboard and attach to the neck
- Cut long triangular ears from cardboard and attach to head
- Glue black yarn along the neck for a mane
- Attach a yarn tail to the back end
- Add googly eyes and draw nostrils and mouth with marker
Donkey Details: Donkeys have helped farmers for over 5,000 years! They’re incredibly strong for their size and can carry approximately 20% of their body weight. Donkeys have incredible memories – they can remember where and with what other donkeys they were with 25 years ago!
Barn Owl Shadow Puppet
Materials:
- Black cardstock
- Wooden craft sticks
- Scissors
- Tape or glue
- Pencil
- Paper fasteners (brads)
- Hole punch
- White colored pencil or chalk (optional)
Instructions:
- Draw or print an owl silhouette on black cardstock
- Cut out the owl shape carefully
- For movable wings, cut the wings separately and attach with paper fasteners
- Punch small holes for eyes
- Optional: add white details with chalk or colored pencil
- Attach wooden craft sticks with tape or glue
- Create a “theater” by hanging a white sheet and placing a light source behind it
- Move the puppet between the light and sheet to create shadows
Owl Observations: Owls, surprisingly, can rotate their heads almost all the way around – close to 270 degrees in any direction! Special feathers make flying absolutely silent, which allows owls to swoop up prey unexpectedly.
Farm Animal Mosaic
Materials:
- Cardboard base
- Dried beans, seeds, and grains (different colors and sizes)
- Pencil
- White school glue
- Small paintbrush for applying glue
- Farm animal templates or drawings
- Clear sealer spray (optional, with adult supervision)
Instructions:
- Draw or trace a farm animal outline onto cardboard
- Separate different seeds, beans, and grains by type
- Working in small sections, brush glue onto the cardboard
- Place seeds and beans to create different textures and colors
- For example: use red beans for a rooster’s comb, white beans for a sheep’s body
- Continue until the entire design is filled
- Let dry completely (24+ hours)
- Optional: With adult help, spray with clear sealer outdoors
Seed Secrets: Chickens love seeds and grains especially, and they can be used to weed out fields. Many farm animals were first domesticated because they can eat plant parts that cannot be digested by humans – breaking down inedible stems, husks, and grasses into eggs, milk, and meat.
Advanced Farm Animal Crafts For Kids(Ages 12+)
Sewn Felt Farm Animals
Materials:
- Felt in various colors depending on animal
- Needle and thread
- Stuffing
- Fabric scissors
- Fabric markers or embroidery floss
- Pins
- Animal patterns (available online)
Instructions:
- Select and print/draw pattern for desired farm animal
- Pin pattern to felt and cut two identical shapes
- Sew the shapes together with a simple running stitch, leaving a small opening
- Stuff the animal with filling
- Sew the opening closed
- Add details with fabric markers or embroidery
- For more advanced crafters, add details like manes, tails, or ears with additional felt pieces
Fabulous Farm Facts: Most farms in the world today are still family-run! About 98% of the farms in the United States are family farms. They do raise animals that provide us with wool for clothing and milk for cheese and ice cream.
Before modern machinery arrived on the scene, the use of farm animals like horses and oxen to help in plowing fields and transporting goods was indispensable.
Clay Farm Animal Crafts for Kids
Materials:
- Air-dry clay or polymer clay
- Clay tools or plastic knife
- Acrylic paint
- Paintbrushes
- Clear sealer (optional)
- Cardboard or clay mat for work surface
Instructions:
- Choose a farm animal to create
- Form the basic body shape from clay
- Add details like legs, head, ears, tail
- Use tools to add texture (fur, feathers, etc.)
- For air-dry clay: let dry completely per package instructions
- For polymer clay: bake according to package directions with adult supervision
- When cool, paint with acrylic paints
- Optional: seal with clear sealer when paint is dry
Clay Creations: Modeling clay animals is maybe one of man’s earliest forms of art! Archeological excavations from the sites have yielded clay animal models over 30,000 years old.
Farm Animal Wind Chimes
Materials:
- Air-dry clay
- Cookie cutters in farm animal shapes
- Drinking straw
- Acrylic paint
- Clear sealer
- Fishing line or string
- Small wooden dowel or stick
- Small bells (optional)
Instructions:
- Roll out air-dry clay to about 1/4 inch thickness
- Use cookie cutters to cut out farm animal shapes
- Use a drinking straw to poke a hole near the top of each shape
- Let clay dry completely (1-2 days)
- Paint animals with acrylic paint
- When dry, apply clear sealer
- Cut fishing line or string into various lengths
- Thread string through holes and tie to the wooden dowel
- Optional: add small bells to the bottom of some strings
Wind Wisdom: Farm animals are surprisingly sensitive to weather! A cow may lie down before rain, while a horse might get playful as pressure drops. Before modern forecasts, farmers often relied on such animal behavior to predict the weather.
Benefits of Farm Animal Crafts for Kids 10 and Up
Children making farm animal crafts develop their creativity and acquire some creative problem-solving skills. They give thought to turning simple materials into something very meaningful, thus instilling confidence in their ability to materialize ideas.
For kids 10 and above, these projects tend to be taken up more technically, with stronger vibes of research and application. This age group enjoys crafts that stretch their abilities and culminate in a creation that they value and want to put on display.
For younger kids, explore our post on farm animal crafts for toddlers up to middle elementary (ages 8 to 10).
For more adorable crafts kids will love, check out these fun ideas:
