A is for Animals

• Sing SILLY “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” … a silly spin on the traditional song.
  1. Sing a few verses of the regular “Old Macdonald” song.
  2. Open “My Little Animal Book” and let the kids choose any animal for Old Macdonald’s farm. Repeat several times. My kids thought this was hilarious Book available here.
     • You might growl for a lion
     • Make fins for a fish
     • Hop for a kangaroo
     • Chomp for an alligator

• Read “Fifteen Animals!” by Sandra Boynton … this is a fun, quick and catchy animal book. Available here.

• Read “Animal Opposites” by Petr Horacek … I LOVE this new book. It is creative and simple and colorful. Most of the pages have a fold-out or pop-up and every page illustrates an opposite. Available here.
  1. Point out the letters on the cover. Name the letters.
  2. If you’re working on colors, ask the kids to name or point to certain colors.
  3. Can the kids name the animals on the cover?
  4. ACT OUT the opposite pages as you read! My kids were giggling and having so much fun with this. It’s especially fun when Mom gets up to do it with them
     • S-L-O-W snail … FAST cheetah
     • STILL sloth … bOuNcY kangaroo
     • quiet rabbit … LOUD LION!

• Do ‘A’ journal page … we use a primary composition book.
  1. Write ‘Aa’ on a new page. Practice a few more AAA’s and aaa’s.
  2. I show my 4-year-old the word “ANIMAL” on the cover of one of our books and she copies the letters onto her journal page.
  3. Add animal stickers (or draw pictures).

• Animal Hunt & Write … this was probably my 4-year-old’s favorite activity. We played it four times, taking turns hiding and finding.
  1. I used the “baby animal match” game available for FREE from 1+1+1=1. Just download and print here.
  2. Leave the adult animal attached to the animal name.
  3. Cut apart the animal babies and have your preschooler glue them to a piece of paper. Clip the paper onto a clipboard.
  4. Hide the adult animal & animal names together around the house. We hid the animals all over our backyard!
  5. Have your preschooler find each animal and copy the animal name next to the matching animal on their paper.
  6. The thrill of the hunt and the fun of copying the letters made this a very fun activity … over and over

• Animal photo matching game … this was a great game matching our toy animals to real-life photos.
• Use “My Big Animal Book” and “My Little Animal Book”. Available here and here. These books contain wonderful real-life animal photos.
• TIP: You could also print out several real-life photos or save them from magazines.
• Match several TOOB-type animals to the real-life photos in the book.

  Wild Animals

  Ocean Animals

  Pets

  Farm Animals

• Play with animals in model magic
1. We used green and brown model magic. I got ours at Michaels. Available here in a variety of colors.
2. Make prints with the animals.
3. Pretend the animals are climbing green model magic trees or sleeping in brown model magic caves.
4. Or squish as many animals as you can into one big lump.
5. We ended up getting the googly eyes out and making snakes and monsters with 100 eyeballs

• Animal Graphing Game
1. Print the “Baby Animal Graphing” game and dice from the Baby Animals Printable Pack from 1+1+1=1.
2. Cut out the dice, fold and glue together.
3. Roll the animal dice and mark the graph.
4. My 4-year-old wants to write her numbers, so she practiced those. You could also mark with an ‘X’ or color in the box.

• Animals Cracker Snack
1. Open a box of animal crackers.
2. Name the animals, make the animal sounds or act them out.
3. Sort the animals into piles.
4. Enjoy an animal cracker snack!