My preschool aged daughter is spending her school time at home these days (hello 2020 quarantine). We are trying to keep her enriched with fun and easy play-through-learning experiences. Making sure she has some basic art, math, reading, writing and play time in her day is challenging for my brain but important and crucial for hers. I thought it would be easier to come up with ideas if I first came up with a “theme” of things she wanted to learn about. That got my wheels spinning in order to find age appropriate learning activities for her. So I searched and came up with tons of safari animal activities for preschoolers.
The safari animal theme was tied into our week. We did all sorts of arts and crafts, and mixed in learning lessons.
Safari Animal Words
We talked a lot about different animals, and how some of them live on a farm, some in the sea, some in the jungle and some of them in the safari.
Using a piece of butcher block paper I asked my daughter to come up with a few animals that she thought were safari animals. As she said an animal, I asked her to tell me what the first letter of the word started with. I also asked if she could hear any other sounds in the word. We compiled a long list and kept coming back to it throughout the week.
My daughter’s teacher encouraged us to continue with an at home journal, so we did a simple safari journal prompt. If I could have any safari animal as a pet it would be….. and I asked her to draw a picture of her and the animal playing together.
Safari Small World Play
Using objects from around the house, I set up all the elements in order for my daughter to create her very own safari habitat. This was so much fun, and she kept coming back to it over and over again all week. A perfect activity for imaginative play. Full details and setup can be found here.
Safari Puppet Show
We talked about how each story has to have a beginning, middle and an end. I decided to let my daughter come up with her own puppet show and story but told her it needed to have all the elements of a story.
I found free safari animal clipart online and printed them out on a single piece of paper. I drew a circle around each animal and asked my daughter to cut them out.
We then placed the animal on top of a craft stick with a glue stick.
I used an old table cloth and put it over the top of the table. My daughter sat underneath and had her puppet story come to life! It was about a elephant who needed to go to the doctor but slipped on his way in BTW.
Safari Arts and Crafts
This project is so easy to set up. We used this easel and I had my daughter on one side and my son on the other.
The first step was to draw the face. We did a guided and directed drawing, I told her in the middle of the paper to draw the triangle, and then the eyes etc and she followed along.
I LOVE painting with cotton balls it’s so easy and provides way less of a mess than traditional paint brushes. We used orange and yellow paint, and then I took two clothespins and attached cotton balls to them in order to create the circular dots around the lion’s face. If you don’t have the supplies at home, dot paint would also work well here.
Pro tip: whenever you do a painting project with littles add a washable plastic table cloth underneath. We also use these bibs to avoid getting paint on our clothes.
Safari Themed Preschool Craft
Moving along in the week, what’s a safari without a lion mask? This was a great opportunity for my daughter to work on her scissor cutting skills.
- On a piece of orange and yellow construction paper, draw 1 inch thick lines, and ask your child to cut them out (if not scissor ready have an adult cut them out).
- Cut a hole in the middle of a paper plate
- Using a glue stick, fasten the strips on the top of the paper plate, alternating yellow and orange stripes
- Let the glue dry and then use the mask!
This was great for talking about patterns. She had to think each time she put a colored strip on what came next. We also went back to the mask later in the day and gave it a “hair cut.”
Math Safari Games
Who said you can’t play with your food? We took oranges and used edible pens and drew cute lion and tiger faces on our oranges.
Since we can’t hit the bookstore or library these days, I had to get creative and find all the animal and safari books we already had. Luckily we had a few and they are a great addition to any littles library:
Safari P.E. Time
Now more than ever it is so important for my kids to stay active! They are used to a half an hour of straight running around the gym or playground at school, and being cooped up in the house means we have to get creative.
My daughter has been OBSESSED with Cosmic Kids Yoga. The narrator does an AMAZING job at telling a detailed story and then having very kid friendly yoga poses to go along with it. We did the jungle safari themed yoga and it was a huge hit.
We had such a fun week learning about safari and jungle animals and can’t wait till our next theme, we are headed to Outer Space!