Easy Animal Activities for Toddlers and Kids

Looking for fun activities that will help your kids spend their time creatively? Count on animals! Kids of every age love our four-legged (or even two-legged!) friends and there’s a great variety of animal activities to keep them engaged, foster their artistic talent and broaden their knowledge around the animal world.

Animal activities for toddlers and preschoolers

• Once upon a time…

…there was a little animal! You guessed right! Fairy tales with animal characters are enjoyable and edifying for young kids, so it is a great way to introduce them to the animal world. In case you don’t have a lot of fairy tales with animals at home, there are plenty of them online. You can always read them the Aesop’s fables where the protagonists are animals!

• Color it!

We don’t need to tell you that kids looove coloring! So, what’s better than combining animals with colors? You can download printables with animal figures and let your kids color them. Then let them cut the animal and paste it on a cardboard. When their colorful animal is ready, you can decorate their room with it! You can even create some “animal corners” in your children’s room. For example, you can make a farm corner and include all the farm animals your kid has colored, a sea corner with all sea animals, etc…

You can also combine this activity with your kid’s favorite animal fairy tales! Get some printables depicting your fairy tale protagonists and let your little one color them in the way they imagine them to be. You can then hang them on their room’s wall and create a scene from their favorite fairytale!

• Discover your artistic side!

Remember those times when kids ask “pleeeease, pleeease! Will you draw me an elephant?”. For those of you who are talented enough to make beautiful drawings, this phrase isn’t daunting at all. But for all of us who are not proud of our drawing skills, this request can be really nerve-wracking… Luckily, technology has made things a lot easier, since there are a lot of videos that provide step-by-step instructions to make easy, yet beautiful drawings. So, why not try to discover your artistic side and help them develop theirs? There are interesting videos that show you how to draw an animal based on your hand shape. You can watch a video and then follow the instructions to draw the animal. You can even a draw an animal family with the parents being based on your hand shape and the baby animals drawn out of your kids’ little hands! The following video provides a lot of useful ideas:

• Molding an animal world!

How many hours have your kids spent playing with play-dough? Let them spend some more while also learning the animals and their body parts! Ask them to mold various animals and talk about the elephant’s trunk, the turtle’s shell, etc. You can also talk about the animals’ habits and environment, thus molding a jungle for a lion or sea waves for a dolphin, etc.

• Home cinema

This may not be one of the first things that come to mind when you think of “animal activities”, but it is certainly one that children love and it can be relaxing for you too. There are plenty of animation movies with animal characters that you can watch with your little ones. Choose movies that depict the real life and environment of animals (that is, not too human-like) and try to promote love for animals.

• Learn the animals!

There are also many educational videos and apps that will help your kids learn the animals and their sounds and habits! If you want your kids to have some beneficial and enjoyable screen time, you can use “Animals for Kids“. An educational app that helps your kids learn the animals while having fun!

Animal activities for older kids

• Origami animals

The origami technique may seem a little difficult for very young kids and this is why we have put it in this category. However, you can give it a try it with your little ones and if they like it, they can make their own creations too. After all, you only need a piece of paper and lots of inspiration! You can find a lot of videos on YouTube with clear instructions on how to create an origami animal. Find the ones you like the most and create your own farm!

• Favorite animal day!

This is one of the animal activities that require some planning, but it is educational and kids get really excited about it! The idea behind this is for kids to get a grasp of how it feels to be a specific animal. Kids choose an animal and pretend to be this animal for a day. They make and wear paper ears and tails, wear clothes that have the animal’s color, they can even make and wear a paper mask that resembles the animal’s face! They try to walk the way their animal would walk, make similar sounds, even eat what the animal would eat (in case this is feasible. For example, if your kid pretends to be a monkey, they can a banana, but if they pretend to be a koala, eating bamboo may not be as easy!). Depending on your kids age, they can also try to make their room resemble the animal’s living environment.

• Knit it!

If you are into knitting and your kids are old enough to use the needles safely, then why not encourage them to make their own knitted animals! Although it requires some patience, kids love the fact that they create something that they can keep for a long time and it is also a great idea for a present to their friends. If you don’t know how to knit an animal, don’t worry! There are plenty of videos you can watch online!