The educational animal activities featured below will help you provide your kids with fun projects to help you learn about animals.

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Animal Safari (Dramatic Play Activity)
Kids of all Ages
Create an animal safari prop box to use with your kids.  Gather things like binoculars (real or pretend), toy rifles (to shoot imaginary tranquilizer darts of course), toy pocket knives, canteens, a compass, a toy camera, and some blank paper or a notebook to draw maps or record observations. For clothing add some boots, belts, and camouflage outfits. (Take old T-shirts or clothing and use spray paint to turn them into camouflage.)  Set the items out in the dramatic play area or your backyard / outdoor area,  and have the kids embark on their own imaginary animal safari.

If Animals Could Talk (Language/Fine Motor/Group)
All Ages
Have kids look through old magazines for pictures of animals to cut out. Glue the picture onto a piece of paper, then draw a thought bubble around it and have kids color a background if they’d like. In the thought bubble, have them write (or dictate to you) what they assume that animal is thinking or would like to say.

You can also do this as a group time activity. Search the Internet for some unique or funny looking animal pictures, and print out 6-10 of the best ones. Hold the picture up to the class, and ask kids to give you their interpretation of what that animal is thinking, preferably in the best animal voice they can muster. Then go on to the next picture and do the same.

Jane of the Jungle (Dramatic Play)
Preschool & Kindergarten
Jane Goodall is a famous primatologist who studied chimpanzees and other apes in the forest. (You can read more about her in the famous people section of our teacher’s encyclopedia.) For this activity kids will channel their own inner Jane Goodall and pretend to be scientists studying primates in the rainforest.

Get out a couple of clipboards with paper and pencils, a pair of binoculars if you have them, and whatever other jungle-related dress-up gear you have on hand. Also add some synthetic plants or vegetation to your dramatic play area, and some play fruit for your apes.

Have a few of the kids pretend to be apes or monkeys (a task that should come naturally to some) while a couple of the other kids pretend to be primatologists, studying the behavior of the chimps and writing down notes on what they do. It’s a simple activity but one they will thoroughly enjoy.

Fur Painting (Art)
Preschool & Kindergarten
Go to an art supply store and pick up a small piece of synthetic fur. Cut it into pieces about 2″ x 3″. Tell kids it’s Bigfoot Animal Fur and have them use it as a painting tool to paint a picture.