The habitats are forest, arctic, farm, African savanna, rain forest, ocean and back yard. Please be aware that not every animal in the set can be sorted into the habitats. Many of the animals can be sorted onto the habitat backgrounds. Although the main goal is to match the cards, I have included some habitat backgrounds for some extended learning. Click on the PREVIEW picture and hover over it to see all pages. For example – horse and foal bear and cub. The baby animals are labeled with their correct animal name, and the mothers are labeled with the generic animal name. The goal of the activity is to match each mother with its baby. I.This is a set of 32 mother animals and 32 baby animals. reptiles, mammals, insects, birds, fish, or amphibians (depending on your child’s knowledge)į.
Here are ways you could group the animals:ĭ. I grouped together a horse, donkey, and zebra and actually wasn’t sure how to name what they had in common. Of course, sometimes there is more than one correct answer. He had to determine what they had in common. I decided to make this activity a little more challenging by showing my Five just a single set of animals. Gradually create more challenging problems… like pets and zoo animals, or dangerous animals and gentle ones. Start simple by putting the giant animals in one pile and the tiny animals in another. This time you put together a group of animals who have something in common, and your child determines what that thing is. This is going to require some higher level thinking for your child. Animals that didn’t fit either group were set aside.ĥ – Problem Solving- Guess My Sort & How are they the same? Here my Five is putting the animals into two groups: ocean animals and zoo animals. For example: “Put the animals who live on land here, and the animals who live in water, here.” If you have props, like a toy barn, or a big piece of blue felt to represent the ocean - even better. Simply tell your child how to sort the animals according to a certain rule. This is a fun activity that you can make easy or challenging depending on your child. (Don’t ask if you can read it or not!) Get the free recording sheet here: Measuring with cubes recording sheet – the measured mom. My Three actually wanted to fill his own in - he didn’t get anything on the correct lines, but he loves for me to tell him how to spell things so he can write them. You can write it all yourself or have your preschooler help you if he’s able and willing. My boys guessed how long each animal was and then checked their estimation using Unifix cubes.
One great use for unifix cubes is measuring length. These are really worth the money (if you can keep track of the cubes and not let your kids leave them everywhere…ahem…). My boys really got into this one! Not too long ago I purchased a set of Unifix cubes. After we had an animal on each shape, I asked questions like, “Which animal is on the triangle?” This activity was a big hit!ģ – Measuring, Estimating – How many cubes long is each toy animal? I didn’t expect my Three to remember the harder shapes, but I included the hexagon, pentagon, and octagon for the sake of my Five. I created a set of simple shape outlines and had my boys put animals on them, naming the shapes as they did so. But he soon got the hang of it and was able to do larger sets in no time.Ģ – Shapes – Put toy animals on shape print-outs At first he put the largest animal first (the elephant) before the giraffe (the tallest). I started with just three animals and had my Three put them in order from tallest to shortest. What kinds of preschool math can you do with toy animals? The activities are endless, but in the spirit of keeping things simple we kept it to five. The animals are much smaller and not as life-like, but you can get certainly get a larger set for less money.
If you’d like to go the less expensive route, I’d recommend the Safari Ltd. We’ve spent several years of birthdays and Christmases accumulating a large set of toy animal figures. So do you have any toy animal figures at home? Here are just a few options for you on Amazon:Ī WidgetsWe’re big fans of Schleich animals and the Learning Resource sets.