Preschool Zoo Theme

Explore the wonderful world of zoo animals with playful, hands-on preschool activities, planning ideas, and printable resources. From lions, elephants, and giraffes to zookeepers, habitats, and animal care, this theme gives children plenty of opportunities to build early literacy, math, science, motor, and social-emotional skills through meaningful play.

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Theme Overview

There is so much for preschoolers to discover during a Zoo theme! As children explore different animals, their habitats, diets, coverings, movements, and behaviors, they naturally build curiosity and early science skills.

A Zoo theme also creates opportunities for dramatic play, storytelling, sorting and classification, measurement, counting, movement, and conversations about how people care for animals.

Whether you’re planning one week or several weeks of learning, this flexible theme can be adapted to your children’s interests while supporting playful learning across every center.

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Sample Activity Plan

Not sure how to organize your week? Below is a free sample activity plan showing one example of how you might build an engaging week around this theme.

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Featured Activities

Already a Club Member? Use the links below to quickly open the featured activities from this sample plan inside the Activity Library.

Featured Activities in this Plan:
Art & Creativity
Create Zoo Animals With Clay
Dramatic Play
Zoo Dramatic Play Pack
Building and Small World Play
Zoo Animal Habitats
Language & Literacy
Zoo First Sound Clip Cards
Zoo Animal 20 Questions
Mathematics
Feed the Animals Matching Activity
Measure & Compare Zoo Animals
Science & Discovery
Animal Sort and Classify Set
Physical
Fine Motor
Pre-Writing/Cutting Practice
Gross Motor
Zoo Movement Activity
Other
Zoo Animal Feelings

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Continue Exploring Activity Ideas

Discover featured activities, classroom ideas, printable resources, and creative ways to bring this theme to life.

The inspiration below is just a small sample of what's possible. Explore the Preschool Activity Library to discover even more activities for this theme

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Get Crafty with Zoo Animals!

This week in your art center add fun Animal Stencils, Scrapbook paper with animal prints, old magazines about animals (National Geographic Kids or Ranger Rick JR. ), craft sticks (for creating animal habitats) and modeling clay for creating animals. 

Create Zoo Animals with Clay 

Invite your preschoolers to manipulate clay to shape their favorite zoo animal. 
Clay is a great tool to support children as they develop the muscles needed to write later on. While engaging with clay children can learn basic skills such as rolling a ball by placing a small piece of clay between their palms, rolling snakes, and pounding the clay with their fists. They can then take these shapes and put them together to create a favorite zoo animal, or even an animal from their imagination. 
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​Make animal Masks

The Animal Masks Activity is an engaging and creative activity that allows children to explore their favorite zoo animals. With a variety of collage materials, children can design their own unique animal mask while learning about the animals' habitat, diet, and sounds. The masks can be used in interactive games such as Simon Says, or during imaginative play as children pretend to be different animals.  
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If I Were at the Zoo

Take photos of the children's faces and print. Give each child their photo, allow them to glue onto a large piece of paper. Encourage them to add a body (they can add an animal body or draw their own body, it's up to them!). Next they can add a story about what they would do if they were in a zoo. View Member Instructions

​Animal Covering Prints

​This art exploration is such a fun way to incorporate art process into a zoo theme. We have all the details for how to do this craft on our  Animal Print Roller Stamps blog post. 

Try this!

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Suggested Dramatic Play Props for Zoo Week

Add Animal Masks, and Costumes to your Dramatic Play Space this week. Consider creating a Zoo in your space with Animal Habitats, and Stuffed Animals. Add plenty of "Zoo Keeper" Dress up items and props. Some Ideas Include : Safari Hats, Rubber Boots, Vests, Buckets, Gloves, and Nets. The Children can practice caring for and feeding the Animals in their Zoo.  Add Animal Signs to this space to encourages literacy.

Zoo Dramatic Play Pack

Suggested Materials: Signs for the zoo, stuffed animals, small animal figures, cube shelves or boxes for habitats, pretend food for the animals, safari costumes for staff, checklists, tickets, exhibit signs, zoo map, attractions list, veterinarian station, and clip boards for checklists. Buy Now

Featured in our Zoo Dramatic Play Pack

Zoo Themed Puppet Show

Make zoo animal puppets and invite them to create stories with the zoo animals. 
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Zoo Animal Dress Up

Put out costumes of different animals and have students dress up and act like they are the animals at the zoo.
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​Backyard Zoo

Create a zoo in your backyard! Set up exhibits using stuffed animals and plastic animal figures. Use signs and props included in the Zoo Dramatic Play activity pack to easily set up your invitation to play.
Invite family over to engage in play too! View Member Instructions

Zoo Animal Charades

   Play animal charades as a group. Have a child act out a zoo animal and the other children guess what kind of animal they are. View Member Instructions

Zoo Animal Habitats

Create an invitation to build Zoo habitats in your Construction Space this week. In addition to blocks, add Zoo Animals, Different Color Felt to create landscapes, Greenery, Twigs, Popsicle Sticks, Rocks, photos of animal habitats,  and Books about animals.
As children are building their habitats ask questions to support the project, ​"Camels live in a dry, hot climate, where do you think they might live? Why?"
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​Create a Small World Zoo

Place some simple props such as zoo animals, plants, assortment of blocks, people, and signs included in the Zoo Dramatic Play Pack in your block center to inspire your preschoolers to create a small world zoo!
See the Create a Small World Zoo to see more images of our invitation and how to create these miniature signs!. 

Zoo Dramatic Play Pack

Build Animals with Blocks

Provide Students with a variety of blocks, and building materials.
Add a variety of photos, and encourage students to build animals. View Member Instructions

Animal Towers

Place pieces of tape on the wall to represent the heights of different zoo animals (or their babies) and challenge children to make towards as tall as each animal. View Member Instructions

Re-Tell Your Favorite Zoo Story

Place a variety of your favorite zoo books, along with plastic zoo animals and props on a small table. Invite students to retell their favorite stories out stories and create their own using the props. 
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*Zoo First Sounds Clip Cards

Practice phoneme recognition with these Zoo Animal First Sounds clip cards from the Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from PKPF

​5 Little Monkeys

Read the book, 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (or one of the many variations available) to your group. 
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​Animal Alphabet Sort

Engage preschoolers with our Zoo Animal Alphabet Sort! Enhance letter recognition and sorting skills by matching zoo animals to their starting letters. This hands-on activity fosters interactive learning and phonics understanding. Perfect for a fun and educational preschool experience!

Zebra Stripes Color Sight Words

Work on color recognition and literacy development with this activity. This activity has two levels of play. Use the colored color words to work on matching up color words to the same color zebra. Or use the black color words to encourage children to use phoneme recognition or sight word recognition. 
Included in our Zoo Preschool Activity Pack.

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Zoo Animal 20 Questions

   Encourage language skills by playing Zoo Animal 20 Questions. Think of a zoo animal and have students ask yes or no questions to help them figure out which animal you are. View Member Instructions

Zoo Animal 3-Step Directions

Practice 3-step directions. Give three directions for children to carry out, children listen to all the directions and then carry them out. "First, roar like a lion. Then, jump like a kangaroo. Next, slither like a snake" (also great for motor development, be ready to jot down notes for assessment). View Member Instructions

Zoo Stories

Invite children to dictate a story about a zoo,
they can create a picture and then dictate a story to an adult to record.

Dramatic Play Writing

  Supply clipboards and paper for children to practice writing while engaging in Zoo Dramatic Play activities.

Zoo Scavenger

If you take a trip to a zoo be sure to include a zoo scavenger hunt for children to engage in. If you're not taking a trip to a zoo, consider setting up a pretend one in your classroom! View Member Instructions

I Want to Be a Zookeeper Book Companion

Our I Want to be a Zookeeper Book Companion pack is a great addition to your literacy activities during this theme! This pack compliments the book I Want to be a Zookeeper by Dan Liebman.
Included in this pack are a Book Review, Extension activity ideas, vocabulary and discussion questions as well as a printable zookeeper game.
Note: This pack is a members exclusive, members please get your free download here in the shop listing or on the members dashboard.

Members get this in our shop!

Feeding Time at the Zoo Pre-K Book Companion

Learn more about feeding time at the zoo with our Feeding Time at the Zoo Pre-K Book Companion. Grab a copy of the book, read aloud, then engage in vocabulary and discussion questions, complete a book review and extension activity!

Available in our Shop!

Read Marianne Berkes Books

Marianne Berkes is an author of children's books that has some great books that involve rhyming, numeral recognition, and counting aloud. These books are a lot of fun and they have the added benefit of discussing different animal features and habitats as well. These books are great for this theme and all year round, a must for any early childhood classroom.      
Over in the Jungle
Over in the Ocean
Way Out in the Desert
Over in the Grasslands
Over in the Forest
Over in Australia 
Over in a River
Over in the Arctic

When learning all about the Zoo be sure to include plenty of fiction books as well as non-fiction. There are so many fun fiction books that you can include in your reading center this week. Good Night Gorilla is a fun book that will be sure to elicit giggles from your bunch. I Want to be a Zookeeper is an excellent book to read before introducing a Zoo Dramatic Play invitation!

Z is for Zookeeper by Marie Smith
Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
If Anything Ever Goes Wrong at the Zoo by Mary Jean Hendrick
My Visit to the Zoo by Aliki
I Want to be a Zookeeper by Dan Liebman
Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire
Curious George Goes to the Zoo by H. A. Rey
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
A Trip to the Zoo by Karen Wallace

*Feed the Animals Game

Count up dinner for the animals in the zoo! 
Children enhance counting and sorting skills while engaging in this activity included in the  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from PKPF. 

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Zoo Number Puzzles

Invite your preschooler to work on number ordering skills! 
Scramble the pieces, then put in numerical order to discover which animal is in the puzzle. This puzzle, and one other, are included in the  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from PKPF. ​

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Measure & Compare Zoo Animals

Find out the different lengths that some zoo animals will grow to be. Invite children to use counting cubes or measuring tape to compare the different lengths. Leave the measuring tape or counting cubes on the ground, then encourage the children to lay next to them to see how they measure up to their favorite animals! 
This is a great opportunity to practice and assess use of measurement terms such as bigger than, smaller than, inches, feet, large, small and more.
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Animal Patterns and Counting

There are a lot of math learning opportunities to be had when exploring animals. Be sure to take the time to talk about patterns on animals, and count stripes or spots.
    Place spots and stripes on the walls of the classroom or hide them around your classroom. Children can count the ones they see on the walls or collect them from around the classroom to collect, count, and possibly create!
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Jungle Animal Sorters

Use Jungle Animal Sorters for a variety of activities in the classroom! Invite students to sort them based on their habitat, skin coverings, what they eat, and more!

Zoo Animal Feet

Collect a variety of plastic animals that represent those that can be found at the zoo, be sure to include both 2 and 4 legged varieties. Randomly pull out two animals. Have the children count up how many feet/legs on each and then count them all up together. Repeat, if students really catch on begin adding more animals or even try subtracting. View Member Instructions

Mini Monkey Bread

Get some baking done during this fun theme by making Mini Monkey Bread!

Try this!

​Sort and Classify Animals

Preschoolers will love the activities in our Sort & Classify Animals activity pack.
​Invite children to sort animals based on habitat, mode of transportation, number of legs, the sounds they make, types of feet, and their coverings. 

Sort and Classify Animals Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Explore Animal Patterns 

Use this Zoo Animal Coverings Matching activity from our Zoo Activity Pack to practice matching animals with their patterns . A fun activity for exploring different animal patterns, colors, and types!

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

​Make a Zebra Pattern

Create a captivating zebra pattern in your preschool classroom! This engaging activity for preschoolers will promote creativity, fine motor skills, and a love for animals. Perfect for hands-on learning and stimulating young minds! Read a Book about zebras such as Lots and Lots of Zebra Stripes. Black paper plates or paper, white paper plates or paper, glue sticks, black construction paper, white construction paper, and child appropriate scissors. Invite children to cut stripes from. An index card with facts about zebra stripes written on it (or just have them in mind if you have a great memory). View Member Instructions

Animal Habitat Slide & Find

Use this printable game to learn a little about where animals live! 
Pull the strip to change the animal for each habitat. What lives in the Savannah? A polar bear? Toucan? These little puzzles include numbers for self-correcting. 
You can find this set in the  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack pack from PKPF. 

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Light Table X-ray

 This hands-on activity allows preschoolers to explore animal x-rays on a light table. It helps them develop fine motor skills, learn about different animals, and understand the concept of x-rays.
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Zoo Cams

    View live zoo cams like these from the San Diego Zoo.

*Zoo Movement Activity

Use animals as inspiration to get little bodies moving!
Flip a card and challenge children to move like that animal. These cards are ​included in the  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from PKPF. ​​

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Zoo Pre-cutting/Writing Practice

Preschoolers need lots of practice learning to follow a line! Use this printable included in the  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from PKPF to encourage preschoolers to follow a variety of lines from left to right using a marker, then for an extra challenge invite them to cut across the line with scissors. 
Alternative Play: Provide zoo mini erasers and encourage children to place them on the lines. 

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Zoo Animal Freeze Dance

Play a fun variation of freeze dance. Play music, randomly stop the music-when the music stops children land on a photo of an animal, then they act like that animal. View Member Instructions

Play Dough Animal Habitats

 Add craft sticks into the play dough center for children to create animal habitats out of. 
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Zoo Blocks

Teach your preschoolers all about animals with Zoo Blocks! Colorful and interactive blocks will engage your students while enhancing their fine motor skills and spatial awareness. Perfect for hands-on learning in the classroom. View Member Instructions

Animal Obstacle Course

You can challenge children with a fun obstacle course that they complete while pretending to be a particular animal "Do you think it's easier to complete this course as a human, lion, or snake?"
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Zoo Cage Transfer-Fine Motor

Set up a container filled with plastic zoo animals along with smaller containers or cardboard boxes to act as the cages in a zoo. Label each small container with the picture of a zoo animal. Have children use tongs, tweezers, or a spoon to pick up each animal from the bin and deliver to their appropriate enclosure.
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Feeding Time at the Zoo-Fine Motor

Gather several oatmeal containers, coffee containers or other round containers with plastic lids. Cut a slit in the top. Decorate each lid to look like a different animal's face, lining the slit up with the animal's mouth. Give children laminated cards with pictures of different types of food (or you can just use playing cards if you want!) and have them feed the animals by putting it through the slit in the top of the container. You can mix this fine motor practice with math skills but having children roll a dice to determine how many pieces of food to feed each animal.

Zoo Animal Yoga

Engage your preschoolers with Zoo Animal Yoga! This fun and interactive activity incorporates movement, imagination, and learning about different animals. Perfect for preschool teachers looking to add a playful twist to their lessons. View Member Instructions

Zookeeper Relay

Get ready for some wild fun with Zookeeper Relay! This exciting activity will engage preschoolers and teach them teamwork as they mimic the actions of zookeepers. Perfect for indoor or outdoor playtime!
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Zoo Animal Finger plays and Movement Activities

Learn a variety of finger plays that feature zoo animals. such as 5-little monkey's. Try these Zoo Movement activities from Dr. Jean

​Animals Around the World

During this theme there are a lot of natural opportunities to talk about the world we live in! You can include talking about a variety of climates, habitats, and geographic locations. Be sure to point out these things when engaging in activities with the children. Take special note of any locations and topics of interest for further study. View Member Instructions

Animal Habitats Outside

Explore animal habitats outside with your preschoolers! Set up small world habitats with water and natural elements. Use rich vocabulary to describe each habitat and discuss where the animals might live in the world. Enhance learning with engaging play and conversations about different ecosystems and climates.

​Take a Field Trip

Plan a field trip to the zoo! This can be done in a variety of ways depending on your learning program. You can plan a visit to a local zoo (if you have a group be sure to call and let them know you are coming so they can plan for special accommodations), invite a zookeeper to the program to talk about their work, or use a virtual field trip like this one from PBS Kid Vision.

More Social Studies Ideas:

Many zoos have live cam feeds that can be viewed. Screen these in advance and show to children, talk about the different habitats that can be seen. 

Belonging

As children learn more about zoos they can learn about how zookeepers work to create habitats for animals that make them feel more at home. Find some photos of zoo habitats, local if possible, and invite children to examine the habitats and pick out differences in how they look from one another as well as the area you live in. 
For example: Gorillas may have a habitat with a lot of trees & greenery and a Rhino habitat is likely to have muddy areas and less greenery. Ask children why they think each habitat looks different. 
Engage in discussion about how zookeepers work to make animals feel like they belong in the setting. Ask children about what helps them feel safe and comfortable in the classroom or when in a new environment. Invite them to come up with ideas they can implement to make everyone feel a sense of belonging in the classroom. 

​Animal Feelings 

Just like people, animals express their emotions in many different ways! 
Invite children to practice expressing their emotions while pretending to be different animals. Which animal makes them think of being calm? angry? sad? and invite them to act out those feelings (in a safe way) like those animals might. 
Make some observations, then create a poster for your calm down space using the suggested animals. The images can give children a visual to refer to when they are having big feelings. View Member Instructions

Play a Game Together: Animal Race Roll & Play*

Engage in a fun non-competitive animal racing game. Take turns rolling the playing cube and moving the animal shown, which animal will reach the finish line first? Play independently or with a partner!
This game is ​included in our  Zoo Preschool Activity Pack

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack from Pre-K Printable Fun

Invite Parents with Animal Work Backgrounds

Ask parents if any of them have experience working with animals and if they would like to come to the classroom for a class discussion. 
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Family Zoo Night

Have the children help transform the classroom into a zoo. Have them draw posters for the zoo, consider having each child set up their own exhibit. Host a family zoo night where families come into the zoo to experience the exhibits. Children can share the information they learned during the Zoo theme study.
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Zoo Trip Photos

    Ask parents to send pictures of a visit they made to their zoo to class with their student. Give students an opportunity to talk about their trip to the zoo. View Member Instructions

Zoo Photo Book

Create your very own Family Zoo Photo Book by compiling photos from zoo trips and photos shared by family. Do some research on the animals in the photographs to include in the book. Print photos along with research information to place in the book or create a lesson in technology and invite children to help you create a photo book online.  Ask family members that live far away to talk about (Send) unique animals that live near them. Children living in cold climates would love to hear about animals like scorpions, tarantulas, and gila monsters from relatives that live dry warm climates. View Member Instructions

Zoo Preschool Activity Pack

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Zoo Dramatic Play Pack

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Animals Sorting and Classifying Mats

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Animal Find & Dab A-Z Letter Preschool Alphabet Worksheets

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