If it’s educational animal activities you’re looking for, we’ve got you covered! Below you’ll find a sampling of free animal activities for kids in preschool, kindergarten and elementary school. These fun animal projects are designed for classroom use by teachers, but parents can do them with their own kids as well. Enjoy!
Free animal activities for kids
Here are some free animal learning activities to do with your children:
If Animals Could Talk–A Cognitive/Language/Group Activity for Kids
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.
Bear Meets Bull–A Group Time/Class Discussion Activity
Animal interactions are happening all the time in the wild. In this fun group-time game, you call out an animal combination and then have kids use their creative thinking skills and imagination to describe what would happen if these animals encountered one another. Here are some sample animal pairings to start with:
- Bear /Bull
- Dolphin/Seal
- Porcupine/turtle
- Elephant/mouse
- Giraffe/kitty cat
- Lion/laughing hyena
Encourage answers both serious and silly. Once kids get the hang of it, have them come up with their own animal pairings to muse over.
Play Dough Porcupines–A Fine Motor Activity for Kids
For this activity you’ll need a box of toothpicks, some googly eyes, and plenty of play dough. Have kids create porcupines by molding a body, legs, and head with the play dough. Once they have their outline completed, attach a couple googly eyes to the head, and then push the toothpicks into the top of the body to complete the porcupine. (You’ll probably want to cut the toothpicks in half so they aren’t as long.) Take pictures of kids’ creations to hang up later!
Animal Art Activities
Beastly Me
Ask kids to bring in one or two small wallet-size facial portraits to use for this art project. Better yet, take them yourself using a digital camera, and then print them out 12 or 16 to a page, which should give you pictures the right size, and is easier and quicker than relying on parents. Provide kids with paper and some sort of art utensil (paint, crayons, markers, etc.), and have them draw an animal body-either a real animal or a hybrid of their own creation. Once they are done, cut and paste their head shot onto the animal’s neck. It makes for a fun and fascinating artistic creation!
Bunnies in the Grass
Print out the rabbit stencil linked below. Provide kids with scissors, glue, crayons or colored pencils, and a separate sheet of white paper. Also gather a bowl or two of grass clippings from outside. Have kids cut and color a few of the bunnies, then glue them near the bottom of their blank piece of paper. Add some grass trimmings by gluing them at the bottom so that it looks like the bunnies are h_ding or playing in the grass. Then draw and color a background scene to complete the picture.
Animal Writing Activities for Kids – free
If I Were An Animal
Write a story from the first-person perspective of a particular animal. What would their life be like? What would scare them? What would they be drawn to? Really try to place yourself in that animal’s perspective.
Endangered Species
Research and write a report about an endangered species.
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