5 Activities for Kids That Love Animals

To say my kids love animals is an understatement. All day we read about animals, draw animals, pretend to be animals and play vet. Here’s a few recent activities that have been a hit with my little animal lovers: 

1. Paper Bag Animal Puppets 

Supplies: Brown paper lunch bag, construction paper or sticky foam sheets, google eyes & glue

Directions: We used sticky foam sheets because it made for easy assembly, but you can use construction paper too. For my kids, I pre-cut out the shapes they will need to construct the puppet and then give them a plate filled with pieces to let them assemble. They always put on some of their own special touches. Below are a tiger and a frog we made. 

2. Make A Bird Feeder

Supplies: Pine cone, peanut butter, bird seed, string, wax paper & plastic knife

Directions: Spread out a piece of wax paper. Tie the string to the sen of the pine cone and place on the wax paper. Have the child use the plastic knife to spread peanut butter on the whole pin cone. Next, have them sprinkle bird seed all over the peanut butter. Hang your new bird feeder and watch the birds fly to see it!

3. DIY Animal Ear Headbands 

Supplies: Headband, felt, glue or tape

Directions: Find an old headband (or use any headband and tape on the ears vs glueing so you can remove them). Cut animal ears out of felt: puppy ears, cat, elephant, etc. Glue the ears to the headband & you have an instant animal costume! Sometimes we even draw on a matching animal face with face paint. 

4. Standing Animals with Clothespins 

Supplies: clothespins, foam sheet or construction paper, glue & google eyes

Directions: Make the body of an animal (leave off the legs). I like using foam sheets because they are sturdy and fun for the kids to work with, but contraction paper works well too. I cut out the shapes for the animal and then let the kids put the animal together themselves. When we did the pig, I cut a circle for the body, one for the head and 2 ears. Then gave the kids the shapes, google eyes and the clothespins for the legs and some glue. They had a lot of fun creating a pig out of all the parts. Then they drew on the rest of the face with marker. We love making these animals! 

5. Subscribe to National Geographic Little Kids (right now it’s only $15 for the whole year on Amazon): We’ve been getting this magazine for a few months now and the girls love it. I really enjoy it too! It’s a cute, small size for little kids and comes packed with cool info. Maggie and Alex love learning about the “animal of the month”. There are always a sheet of animal “trading cards” with fun facts too. We’ve learned about so many new animals from this magazine. It makes for fun bedtime reading!