5 Animal Books and 10 Animal Crafts

Last week I wasn’t well at all so I’m playing catch up with the house and washing so I’m all crafted out for this week. But in honour of the Summer Readathon with MeMeTales and PBS I’m sharing some of our favourite Animal Books and some animal activities that we have done to extend the Free books from the Readathon further and create a fun filled week. If you have signed up for the Readathon you will have got your newsletter with a link to the curriculum of activities for the week- if you haven’t signed up then GO DO IT NOW!

So here’s 5 of our favourite Animal Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers

That’s not my Lion – this is great for early toddlers – it has clear writing, familiar pattern to the story (if you have any of the That’s not my… books then you will know what I mean). We love it for the touchy feely pages – exciting the other sense is a great way to get young toddlers and babies interested in reading – now J is older as well I find him reading these to Tilly. It’s very sweet and I hope that long may this continue.

One of our favourite stories – we have 3 copies of it is Giraffes can’t dance – including a multitude of different animals and all the wonderful dances that they do this is a great story. We started to read this to J just after he was 16 months old and can’t wait till T wants to sit and read it with us as well.

We’ve mentioned it before – but I’ll mention it again What the Ladybird Heard is a lovely animal based book it is filled with Farm animals and all of the different noises that they make. The illustrations are brilliant and J can be found sitting on his bed “reading” the story to himself out loud with a few additions to the story as well.

For a complete A – Z of animals we love Animal ABC – each animal is featured with a poem about the animal with bright and vibrant pictures and rhymes this is a much asked for book in our house and we have to read all 26 animals (yes they have a Q and X in there as well) before we can put it down.

Choosing a last book was hard – there was some that I wanted to choose classics but they would always be chosen in animal book lists so instead I’m going for one of our new classic books that Tomorrow I will be featuring a fun activity based around The Animal Boogie – J received this for his birthday last year and it comes with a CD – with 4 tracks on it…. I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to that CD but I can recite it word for word as well as J being able to hum the tune for it as well.

Animal Crafts and activities from Rainy Day Mum

So not only some of our favourite Animal Books but also some of our favourite animal crafts over the last year and a bit…

Sticky Turtle

Jelly Fish

Rainbow Fish Handprints

Animal track prints

Animal Skins

Paper Plate Lion

Paper Plate Ladybirds

Ladybugs

Paper Plate Fish

Little Lamb