Preschool Nocturnal Animals and Day & Night Themed Activities
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Below you can find tons of fun and engaging Nocturnal Animal Activities! Pick and choose the activities for your lesson or download a free copy of our Nocturnal Animals Preschool Lesson
Plan to save you time! 
Club Members can download our nocturnal animals activities for free! Not a member? Find out more about our membership
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Nocturnal Animals and Day & Night Theme
Do you need helping planning your Nocturnal Animals theme? Use the suggested learning objectives and vocabulary ideas found on our Theme Map to help you plan your own Nocturnal Animal Lessons.
Free Nocturnal Animals and Day & Night Lesson Plan
We created this free Nocturnal Animals sample lesson plan using activities and our products featured on this page! Combine it with our coordinating resources to save even more time planning your lessons.
Sign up below to get your own free copy of this sample plan! Please be sure to save it to your device!
Coffee Filter Bats
Create the cute little bats using a simple process with everyday materials! Check out the full set of instructions on my Bat Craft blog post.
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Create Owl Puppets
Set out brown paper bags and a variety of shape cutouts for children to create their own owl puppet.
After each child has a puppet learn this 5 Little Owls chant and use the puppets while singing.
After each child has a puppet learn this 5 Little Owls chant and use the puppets while singing.
A Forest at Night CollageMember Sheena W share this photo of a forest at night college her kids made. They used deco mesh tubing for the trunk, glued on fake leaves and a bat and then googly eyes.
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More Nocturnal Animals Art & Craft Ideas from Around the Web
Paper Plate Fox from Glued to my Crafts
Animals at Night Craft from Green Kids Crafts
Bats & Nocturnal Animals From Metamora Community PreK
Handprint Owl from My Bright Firefly
6 Nocturnal Animal Crafts from Green Kids Crafts
Animals at Night Craft from Green Kids Crafts
Bats & Nocturnal Animals From Metamora Community PreK
Handprint Owl from My Bright Firefly
6 Nocturnal Animal Crafts from Green Kids Crafts
Nocturnal Animal Sanctuary
Add signs and props to your dramatic play stand to create a nocturnal animal sanctuary. Provide animal figurines or stuffed animals, or even printed photos of nocturnal animals. Children can use boxes as the habitats for each animal.
Support children in finding out what each animal needs for their habitat.
Support children in finding out what each animal needs for their habitat.
Spider ExhibitSet up a spider exhibit for preschoolers to explore through play!
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Bat Cave
Turn your dramatic play area into a batcave by building a fort or you can bring in a small tent to cover with a black sheet. Incorporate flashlights as well, the kids will love this one.
More Nocturnal Animals Theme Preschool Dramatic Play Ideas
DIY Cave by Kid Frugal
Nocturnal Animal Small World Play
Include pictures of dens, caves, spider webs and hollow nests. You can bring in loose parts like leaves, sticks, and bark pieces with nocturnal animals to enhance their block building.
Build a Cave
Challenge preschoolers to build a cave of any size out of blocks of their choice!
After building encourage children to describe their structures and why it works for the animal they designed it for.
After building encourage children to describe their structures and why it works for the animal they designed it for.
Storytime Activity:
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Nocturnal Animal Writing Tray
Using colored sand and a nocturnal animal word wall cards to have the child practice writing in the tray
Bat Alphabet First Sounds PuzzlesThese adorable little bats are great companions for supporting preschoolers in learning letter identification, uppercase/lowercase matching, and first sounds!
Find this activity inside my Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack! |
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Little Owl's Night Book Activity
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Read Little Owl’s Night and create your own owl body: Use a waffle for the body, and some fun sliced fruit for wings and facial features. Such a fun activity to go with a book.
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Time to Rhyme!This cute little racoon is the perfect host for rhyming with your preschooler. Included in my Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack!
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Flashlight Letter Search
Tape letters on the walls or use environmental print for this activity. Give each child a flashlight and turn out the lights. Search the room for letters using the flashlights.
Nocturnal Animal PuzzlesBuild words while assembling these little animal puzzles! Fantastic for letter recognition and learning that letters can be combined to form words. Included in my Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack!
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Faces of the Moon Storytime ActivityThe book Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin is a great book to read along with this theme and a fun way to learn about the phases of the moon.
Pre-K Printable Fun Club Members log in to download a member exclusive activity to compliment this book. Not a member? Learn more. |
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After Dark: Poems About Nocturnal Animals
by David L Harrison
Nocturnal Animals
by Abby Dunne
Forest Bright Forest Night
by Jennifer Ward
Flashlight
by Lizi Boyd
by David L Harrison
Nocturnal Animals
by Abby Dunne
Forest Bright Forest Night
by Jennifer Ward
Flashlight
by Lizi Boyd
Nocturnal Animal Footprint Match
Print out photographs of nocturnal animals and the tracks they make. Invite your preschoolers to try and match them up!
Cave Number MatsLearn to identify numbers in a variety of ways! Match up the number represented as a number, number word, fingers, and ten frame.
Included in my Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack! |
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How Many Bats in the Cave?
Place different amounts of black pompoms inside brown paper bags. Have the child remove the pompoms and count how many are in each bag.
Counting Eyes at NightThis mat is perfect to pair with googly eyes for fine motor and math fun!
Identify the number on the owl card be reading the number, number word, or counting up the dots in the ten frame. Then add googly eyes to the counting mat! Included in the Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack! |
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Where is the Bat?Support preschoolers in learning positional phrases with this mini-book! This Where is the Bat? Positional Phrases Activity comes in color or B&W
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Owl Adaptation GamePretend to be an owl and learn about adaptations with this activity from my Nocturnal Animals Science Set.
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Night Play doughCreate an invitation to build play dough tray with black play dough, googly eyes, bat or spider cookie cutters. Invite the child to create their own nocturnal animal.
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Flashlight Shadow MatchingThis activity is an easy and engaging way to add science to your lessons this week. See the details on my Shadows Exploration blog post.
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Nocturnal Animals Read & RespondLearn more about nocturnal animals with these read and respond cards! Engage preschoolers in conversation to learn more about elusive nighttime creatures. Included in my Nocturnal Animals Science Set.
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Black Bat Sensory Bin
Create a sensory bin using a filler of your choice such as colored rice, you will dye bow tie noodles black to represent your bats.
Animals at Night Sensory Bin
Create this fun sensory bin using a base of black beans, wooden trees, nocturnal animal figures, and glow in the dark stars!
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Sense of Sound
Some nocturnal animals rely on their sense of sound to get around in the darkness.
Challenge your preschoolers to explore sound with this game.
Sit outdoors with your group, or try this game during a walk.
At random intervals signal children to stop and listen, each time have them listen for something different: loudest sound, quietest sound, something far away, something unfamiliar and then encourage each person to share what they heard.
Challenge your preschoolers to explore sound with this game.
Sit outdoors with your group, or try this game during a walk.
At random intervals signal children to stop and listen, each time have them listen for something different: loudest sound, quietest sound, something far away, something unfamiliar and then encourage each person to share what they heard.
More Nocturnal Animal Theme Science & Discovery Preschool Ideas
Spider Web WeavingFor this activity you will need a paper plate and white yarn. Cut little triangular notches around the paper plate, these will help hold the yarn in place as children wrap it around the plate.
Cut a long piece of white yarn and tape one end to the center of the plate. Then invite children to wrap the yarn across the plate resting the yarn in the notches as they go. |
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2D Shape Hunt Gross Motor GameHunt up some learning fun with this gross motor learning game! Slip on the mouse hat and hunt high and low for the hidden cheese shapes then scurry to tuck them away in your hiding place.
Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack! |
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Porcupine Playdough
Create a porcupine out of play dough and then stick toothpicks in it for the spines.
Mini Play Dough Task CardsWork on fine motor skills and creative thinking by creating nocturnal animals out of play dough. Included in the Nocturnal Animals Day and Night Activity Pack!
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Owl and Opossum Game
Have a conversation about how opossum’s are great at tricking their predators because they play dead. In a large space you can play a game where some students are the owls and others are opossums, have them play dead when their predator comes.
More Nocturnal Animal Theme Physical Motor Preschool Ideas
Nocturnal Animals in my Community
Learn about the animals that live in your community. Determine which are nocturnal and which are diurnal.
If you have family or friends that live far away ask them about the animals that live in their community, are they different? the same?
If you have family or friends that live far away ask them about the animals that live in their community, are they different? the same?
Nocturnal Animal Sort
Gather pictures of various animals and have the child sort the nocturnal animals into one category.
Bats Are Sleeping Fingerplay
Try adding this fun Bats Are Sleeping fingerplay to your activities this week.
Community Engagement
Find out if there are any local organizations that work with nocturnal animals in your area. Perhaps there is a zoo or animal sanctuary or even animal control that can come and speak about the nocturnal animals that live in your community.
Racoon Calendar CardsThe racoon number cards included with the PKPF Fall Calendar Cards set is perfect for coordinating your calendar and math activities with this theme.
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Family Engagement
Communicate your upcoming theme with enrolled families.
Sharing about the theme in your program newsletter is a great way for families to understand what their children are learning and expand on the focus at home.
Sharing about the theme in your program newsletter is a great way for families to understand what their children are learning and expand on the focus at home.
Nocturnal Animal Display
Print out (or cut out) B&W images of nocturnal animals, these should be a full-page with one large image on each page. Send home a different animal with each family. Encourage them to decorate the animal at home in any way they choose and then send back to school to display. As a fun extension encourage each family to learn and share a fact about the animal with the class.
This is a great first introduction to completing projects at home and sharing at school. This is becoming a kinder requirement in many places.
This is a great first introduction to completing projects at home and sharing at school. This is becoming a kinder requirement in many places.
Assessment Opportunity
This week offers several opportunities for assessing children naturally as they engage in offered experiences. Here are a few suggestions:
- Math: Classify, sort, & compare based on a common quality (Nocturnal/Diurnal Animal Sorting)
- Language & Literacy: I use new vocabulary (nocturnal and diurnal
- Science & Discovery: I use my senses to explore (Sense of Sound activity)
Library
Take a trip your local library. Ask a librarian to put together some books all about nocturnal animals for your preschooler. Many libraries will happily provide this service! They also often have knowledge of community resources related to a variety of topics. This is a great opportunity to teach your preschooler how valuable these community workers are!
Evening Observation
Sit in your backyard in the evening and use your senses to discover what nocturnal animals might be active near your home.
