I loved this week! Mostly because I think forest animals are so cute! Little Man’s nursery was forest/moose themed! We had a lot of fun with these forest animal activities, and we hope you do too! Click below for the activity calendar!
Forest Animal Books
Hoot by My Little World
If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff
Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Baby Bear, Baby Bear by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
Never Touch a Porcupine by Make Believe Ideas Ltd.
S.T.E.M.
Brown Bear Coloring Matching – This activity comes from Tot Schooling, and Little Man loved it! He asked to do it again! I made sure to laminate it, so that he could play with it multiple times.
Bat Straw Rockets – I love when activities are so simple and fun! Thank you Buggy and Buddy for this great resource! My laptop wasn’t working to print the actual bat, so I made my own! Don’t laugh! 🙂
Hide the Fox – I came up with this activity. All you need are a few boxes, and a forest animal (I chose a fox, but pick whatever you like). Hide the animal under one of the boxes (make sure your little one is looking). Then move it around (like the shell game), and have your child guess where the animal is hiding. This held Little Man’s attention for about five minutes, which is a long time for him! 🙂
Build a Beaver Dam – If you have an older child, I would definitely encourage them to try to actually stop water from coming through their dam. They could use anything found in nature. I think that would be a lot of fun! However, I remember during our Build a Bird’s Nest experience, that Little Man had no interest in building with nature, haha, so I planned to use blocks instead, but unfortunately, we never had a chance to do this activity!
Hedgehog Toy – I love this toy, and so does Little Man! I highly recommend the purchase! However, I know that isn’t always possible. Therefore, another activity you could do, is to print out a picture of a hedgehog (just search for hedgehog clip art), and then glue on colored quills. The quills could be made out of paper, but colored popsicle sticks would also be fun! 🙂 Discuss the colors as you glue the quills on, and if your child is older, consider arranging them in a pattern.
Motor
Deer Antlers – The picture we used for this came from Simply Playing School. I drew a dot in the center of each circle so that Little Man could see where to stamp. He loved using the bingo dauber! I had to print out another picture so that he could do more, haha! He actually did really well! I was proud of him! 🙂
Sticker Snakes – This activity from Pinterest actually has the child creating patterns, but Little Man is not ready for that, so we just practiced one-to-one correspondence. I drew dots on the snakes and Little Man put a sticker on each dot.
Gathering Acorns – We have an oak tree, so Little Man was able to collect actual acorns, which he loves to do! If you don’t have a place to gather acorns, just print out a few and scatter them around for your child to collect!
Get Egg Back to Nest – Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for this, but what I was going to do was hide eggs throughout the room and have Little Man put them all back into a basket (think Easter egg hunt)!
Hunt and Seek – Played the same as hide and seek, but the seeker is the “wolf” and the hider is different animal. Little Man is not the greatest hider, haha! Gotta love him!
Music
Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel
Little Bunny Foo Foo
The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Other
Owl Hand Print Craft – This was totally just for me. Little Man doesn’t care about crafts like this, but I really wanted something to hang up in the house! 🙂 Idea from Mom Fun Blog.
Bubble Snakes – Little Man and I both loved this! Thank you Children’s Room for this great idea!
Porcupine Art – Yet another fun activity we didn’t get to this week! However, what I planned to do was print out a clip art picture of a porcupine, and then have Little Man glue toothpicks onto it! 🙂
That’s all the forest animal activities I have for the week, but be sure to check back next week for a brand new theme!
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