There are thousands of really cool and engaging animal-themed lesson ideas

Kids of all ages go crazy for animals, and some of them know more vocabulary about animals than they do about people.  I had a little boy in my class who had difficulty giving very basic info about himself but who could name a sperm whale in English!  And a hammer-head shark, and a duck-billed platypus – I’m not kidding!  (I’ll always remember you, Tomás!)  So here are just some ideas – more to come!

Animal activities

Prepare the children for their roles by looking at how animals move, what noises they make, etc.  Some ideas:

Simon Says

Walk like an elephant, slither like a snake, etc.

Copycats

In a circle, do an animal action and encourage the students to copy you. Then ask someone else to be ‘it’, and the class copies what action they do. This person then chooses someone else to be ‘it’.  Keep the time the student is ‘it’ short.

Snake

Students form a line with their hands on the shoulders of the student in front of them, forming a snake.  Everybody closes their eyes except for the student at the front, who is the snake’s head. They move slowly around the class, leading the rest of the snake. Then the student who was the ‘head’ goes to the back of the line to become the end of the tail, until they’ve all had a turn.

Guess your animal

Put post-it notes with an animal name on students’ backs, and they have to work out what they are. For younger learners, get them to mime the animals for each other.  Older children have to ask questions to find out, for example: ‘Have I got wings?’  Can be done as a mingling whole-class activity or individually.

Squeak, Piggy, squeak!

In a circle, all wearing animal masks (see next section).  Blindfold one child and put them in the middle of the circle.  Spin the child (only a bit!), then they walk straight ahead until they touch someone and say ‘Squeak, Piggy, squeak!’.  The other child makes the animal noise (or gives a spoken clue) and the first has to guess who it is.  Then that person is blindfolded (giving the other their mask) etc, until they’ve all had a turn.

Zoo! (variation of Fruit Salad)

Students sit on chairs in a circle. Go around the circle, touching each student on the shoulder and giving them the name of an animal. Check that everybody knows what they are!  When you say a name: ‘Monkeys!’, all the monkeys change places, when you say ‘Snakes!’ all the snakes change places, etc.  When you say ‘ZOO!’ everyone changes places and you remove one of the chairs, leaving one student in the middle.  She/he then becomes the caller.

Making origami animals

In previous posts, we’ve already talked about the benefits of making origami animals. Here’s the link:

https://bat-i-burrillo.com/origami-finger-puppets/