Zoo Animal Preschool Math Activities

Do your preschoolers love zoo animals? If they do, you will love these zoo animal preschool math activities that teach numbers and counting.

You don’t need fancy materials to teach preschoolers number recognition, number words, and counting.

In fact, I’ve got some fun ways you can incorporate your child’s favorite zoo animals into your everyday math lessons.

Zoo Animal Preschool Math Activities

Count Zoo Animals

You can find plastic zoo animal figures at any local dollar store or department store. After letting your preschoolers explore the figures (naming them, playing with them, making their sounds), practice counting the animals.

Your preschooler can line them up and count them. Or, you can call out a number and let your preschooler separate that many animals from the group.

This is a great way to assess whether your child can count to ten (or how many animals you have) without skipping numbers. It’s also a great way to assess whether or not they can create sets of specific numbered objects.

Speaking of counting, this fun set of zoo counting activities includes building a number train, matching numbers to sets, stacking counting cubes, and more.

Zoo Counting Games

When you incorporate games into your learning activities, you can engage preschoolers on a whole different level. You provide an opportunity to work on skills under the guise of family fun.

For instance, you can play I Spy Zoo Animals with your preschoolers. They will search among a grid of zoo animals to count various animals.

Zoo-themed UNO Junior cards help preschoolers work on number recognition and color matching.

Zoo Math Worksheets

You can download this free set of zoo math worksheets which focus on counting, addition and subtraction, sequencing by attribute, and more.

BOOKS ABOUT ZOO ANIMALS

Below, I’ve featured just a handful of preschool books about zoo animals that will help your preschoolers learn more about the animals that live in a zoo.

You should be able to find them at your local library or bookstore. If you can’t find them locally, you can click each image cover to purchase them on Amazon.

 

Giraffes Can’t Dance – Giraffes Can’t Dance is a touching tale of Gerald the giraffe, who wants nothing more than to dance. With crooked knees and thin legs, it’s harder for a giraffe than you would think. Gerald is finally able to dance to his own tune when he gets some encouraging words from an unlikely friend.

How the Zebra Got Its Stripes – As a group of African animals hang out at the local watering hole, they share funny stories about how the zebra got its stripes. At the end of the book, fun facts explain why zebras really have stripes.

Zoo Animals – As children page through this beautiful book, they will learn the names of many animals they meet at the zoo! Each page offers a short description of the featured animal and its habitat.

Zoo Animals Ideas for Kids

Add some plastic zoo animal figures to your pretend play area for kids to explore. They’ll have so much fun using them to act out zoo books or other imaginative play scenarios.

Read Do You Know Hank the Hippo, and let your preschoolers act out the story with an adorable crocheted hippo toy.

Set up a zoo animals sensory bin with this kit! Filled with a mixture of textures, bright and vibrant colors, this kit will let your little one explore for hours.

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