In the fall we like to take time to explore forest animals in our toddler and preschool classroom. We especially enjoyed learning about bats, owls, squirrels, and raccoons. This gave us the opportunity to also learn that some animals sleep during the day instead of at night! This was also a good time to take a nature walk, noticing the birds and squirrels that shared our play area. 👉 Scroll down towards the end of this post to find free printables you can use during your forest animals theme!
Setting Up the Forest Animals Theme in the Toddler and Preschool Classroom
Dramatic Play
As soon as I found these adorable forest friends felt masks, I knew they had to be part of our dramatic play area. I pulled out all our wooden bowls to go with our fruits and vegetables, and a cute little fall tray that I got at Target years ago. I think our children loved the masks even more because we are close to Halloween, so their excitement to wear costumes (including masks) is pretty high!
Books
Oliver the Curious Owl Little Owl’s Night The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Good-Night, Owl! The Sleepy Owl Wow! Said the Owl Rock-a-Bye Baby
After tracing and cutting the owls out, I glued them to popsicle sticks. Right now our 2 year olds LOVE pushing sticks into playdough! I added velcro to the backs of the owls so they could stick to a felt board. One of our teachers created a tree out of felt and I just knew everything would be perfect for our felt board. I read Owl Babies during circle time, using the 3 owls as props. I then invited the children to act out the story on the felt board. (Note: the felt board was given to me free of charge last spring in exchange for a review. It comes with a complete set of felt upper and lower case letters, too. You can read more about it here.) I had leftover clear plastic plates from our ladybug suncatchers, so I found a way for us to turn them into bats. You can read more about them here: How to Make a Bat Suncatcher I love using props during circle time, and it’s even better when the children help make them! I made copies of my forest animals color pages (available towards the bottom of this post) and added large craft sticks. You can read how to make them here: Easy Forest Animal Puppets (with Free Printables) One of our very favorite toys is Magnatiles. Seriously, these magnetic building tiles are loved by every age in our preschool. So I cleared away the trains and used the train table for our collection of Magnatiles, plus also our Goobi Juniors Magnetic Construction Set. This set, by the way, is for toddlers as young as 1, and they are so much fun! I created some fun printables for our children to use during our forest animal theme.
Click on each photo below to download the free pdf printable:
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 Pet Theme Bug Theme Easy to follow activities that include modifications and adaptations to meet the needs of all learners. Note: This is a digital product. That means when you make a purchase, you will be emailed a link to the activities. For more information, click on the graphics below:
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