If you have googled, “Is cabin fever a real thing?” in the past few weeks, you are not alone! Forced to restrict our movements, it is reasonable to feel claustrophobic and a little out of our depth.

Parents are trying to do their best to entertain and educate kids in these strange new times, but with so many resources available for kids, both online and offline, it is easy to get overwhelmed. So, we thought it would be helpful to round-up our current favourite online resources for children — farm-themed, of course!

Here are our current picks!

Design your own ear tag

Dalton Tags have launched a fun initiative where children can design their own cattle ear tag. Click here to visit Dalton Tags competition section. Download the entry form and get your kids designing. Two winners will each receive their design on a personalised keyring with a bag of goodies. Move quickly though — closing date is May 10. Under 16s only!

Countryside Classroom

The Countryside Classroom has lots of free resources with themes of food, farming and the natural environment. Created to provide resources for teachers and home-schoolers, this attractive website allows you to search thousands of pieces of quality-assured educational content, representing the very best-in-class. The ability to filter the search results by age is a significant time-saver!

We especially like their Home Education HUB: Activities for Spring, which includes inspirational ideas on springtime activities to support home educators. As the weather improves, why not try their Outdoor Magic Number Square. All you need are sticks, chalk and to get the kids to gather up individual tokens (pebbles, leaves, etc.). A magic number square is a grid in which every row, column and diagonal adds up to the same number (the magic number).

Cocoon your kids – literally!  

In the current fear of scarcity, it may be unwise to wrap your child in toilet paper! However, Castlecomer Discovery Park in Ireland has created a beautiful page of resources based on the theme of cocooning and butterflies.

What a lovely way for kids to discover why their grandparents or someone close to them is cocooning!

By exploring the lifecycle of a butterfly, children learn why cocooning is an essential part of the butterfly’s life. The attractive resource also has instructions on making your own cocoon (from a toilet roll holder), colouring in a pre-coded butterfly, completing some butterfly maths challenges and exploring the garden for cocoons.

Genus ABS

We love this idea from Genus ABS, which is available on their Facebook page. This fun activity combines cutting, colouring and collage to produce a fine-looking paper cow! With five breeds to choose from, you can encourage your children to make an entire herd if they wish. Safety first — for the younger kids, do not forget to supervise the cutting with scissors!

JCB Kids

JCB Kids is the official JCB kids Facebook page for families with young JCB fans. JCB is the third-largest manufacturer of construction equipment globally, with 22 factories around the world. Their signature yellow machinery is a favourite among fans, both young and old.

We loved their short animation clips so much that we posted them onto our own KEENAN Kids page. The four short animations are around 15 seconds long, and each clip poses a question to encourage close observation. We admit to a little bias, as one of the clips features an animated KEENAN diet feeder!

Alltech at Home

Alltech has just launched a new initiative, Alltech at Home, which is sure to keep the family entertained during this period! Here you will find a whole bunch of farm- and animal-themed activities and games, specially designed with all ages in mind!

Keep an eye on this page, as it will be regularly updated with new materials to help bring a bit more fun to your day!

​​​​​​​We hope you like our round-of materials for this week. Check out our KEENAN Kids page for some additional material. Feel free to share with your friends. Stay home, stay safe!