Mammal Activities for Tots and Preschoolers with Free Printables

We're studying mammals this week! It's so exciting to see our new activities for tots and preschoolers on the shelves, especially with the new free printables I've created.

I've been reading like crazy, and it just seems that Montessori is an answer to my prayers as to how to help the kiddos be successful in learning. 

Bulldozer still needs help transitioning from activities and motivation to actually choose activities, but in the end, I feel like all three children will learn more the Montessori way.  

Dinomite has been asking so many questions about so many subjects.  As I study the Montessori way of presenting things, it seems very similar to the way that Dinomite's brain is programmed.  

Since Princess is so smart, yet struggles so much emotionally, the Montessori way seems to provide her with just the right balance of challenge and structure.

These Mammal Activities with Free Printables for Tots and Preschoolers are yet another confirmation that we're headed in the right direciton. The kids loved them!

I haven't quite figured out how to build a portfolio of the kids' work and accomplishments yet, but showing and writing about their journey here seems to be the next best thing.

Mammal Activities for Tots and Preschoolers

Mammals & Their Native Continents Sort

Dinomite has always been obsessed with animals of all kinds, quoting what he's learned from books, encyclopedias, and his animal documentaries. However, he doesn't really grasp location yet. 

I decided to combine animals and continents, introducing the continents.

This activity has given him great practice at mammal identification and the continents they live on.  

For Bulldozer and Princess, it has been a great matching activity, as they can match continents and names, and also animals with continents. 

A continent outline is on the back of every mammal card.

Sources: Cards were found at Walk Beside Me, but appear to be no longer available. Since this post, I have created my own set of cards that is available. Just visit my Mammals Unit 2 with Free Printables post for more details. 

Mother & Baby Animal Names Match Up

Last week, during speech therapy, I realized that Bulldozer didn't know his baby animal names.  I was kind of shocked.  After the therapy, I asked Princess a few and realized she didn't know them either. 

I created this activity specifically for them, with enough of a challenge for Dinomite.  

I decided to use the adult mammal names, instead of specific mother names, worried that mother names might confuse the little ones.

Source: The Baby Animal Identification Cards are a Subscriber Only Freebie. For your free copy, follow the directions at the bottom of this post.

Mammal Tracks Matching Activity

Dinomite has always been big into fossils, tracks, etc., so when I stumbled across this idea, I thought it would be quite fun.  

I selected animals that we had little figures of, but there are many mammal track options out there.

Sources:  The idea for this activity was inspired by a post on My Montessori Journey.  There are links to tracks and matching animal pictures at Montessori for Everyone.  

I made my own cards specific to the animals we had figures for.  

When I can use figures instead of pictures, it just seems so much more fun.  Bulldozer and Dinomite tend to struggle with pretend play, so presenting play themes and options sometimes helps them develop that skill further.

Coloring Our World

The kids have known about our Earth for a while, as we are very big on the creation and Earth Day, but they really didn't know much more than the fact that this is the Earth we live on.  

As I've introduced the continents this week, this activity proved to be a great way to show their locations and why our earth looks the way it does.

Sources:  I found this coloring page at Crayola.com.  Instead of printing off a million copies of paper maps, we use one printed page and a sheet protector.  Crayola Washable Dry Erase Markers work great!

Mammals Hair Matching Activity

As we went through our week talking about mammals, the kids learned all mammals have hair.  However, hair can be very different in colors, patterns and textures.  

This activity was a great way to help the kiddos identify different types of mammals, their names, hair colors and patterns at a very basic level.

You can find more up to date hair matching and skin pattern activities in the resource below.

Montessori-inspired Animals Printable Pack

This printable pack includes so many wonderful resources for children learning about mammals!

Animal Puzzle

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The kids loved this Melissa and Doug Wooden Puzzle! 

It was the perfect addition to our mammals study this week.

Animal Cracker Sorting & Patterns

I found this activity a great way to incorporate math into our studies this week, and well...  Bulldozer's number one motivator is food, especially cookies of any kind.  

There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't choose this activity to work on for at least part of the time.  To make sure the kids didn't take too long, I gave them each about 1 cup of animal crackers to work with.

Each kiddo had an option of doing several things with the cookies.
1. Sort different types of animal crackers into muffin tin.
2.  Make patterns using animal crackers.
3.  Combine both options above.
4. Sort different types of animal crackers into muffin tins, count and/or graph results.

We used Barnum's Animal Crackers, as they have lots of detail and the animals are easy to decipher.

And there you have it!  I wanted to make sure to mention that each mammal activity (with the exception of the puzzle) focused on different types of mammals.  

Activities that included animal figurines were especially varied.  Not a single mammal was repeated, allowing the kids to learn about a large variety of mammals from different places and settings.

After our first week, using our Montessori-inspired activities and structure, I do believe the kids are much happier and enjoying themselves a lot more.  

Princess definitely shined as she was able to learn at her own pace, instead of being grouped with Bulldozer, who is one year older than she is, but delayed. 

Dinomite originally thought some of the activities were too easy, but I was able to present other options for him that proved more challenging and he kept with it.  

All three kiddos completed at least one option presented at every activity, if not more.  I'm very proud of them!  It also led to many questions throughout the week like,

"What is a baby fox called?"

I'm very excited to continue on like this, however, I know it will take me a least a few more weeks to and/or months to have everything running the way I want to.  

After all, there are three kids at completely three different levels of learning, all working together, all having unique special needs of their own.  Wish me luck!

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7. Select the Minimalism, Montessori, or Mental Health Printables Library.

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We hope you enjoy your free printable.

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If you're interested in more Montessori-inspired mammal activities and resources, be sure to visit the posts below.

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