How To Teach Two Year Old About Animals

6 Games That Teach Tots About Animals

Reviewed on October 1, 2021

These creature activities can assist your critter learn about the other living creatures that share our planet.

To toddlers and preschoolers, animals are incessantly fascinating, mostly because they seem just as lightheaded, noisy and cute as footling kids. They're even easy and fun to imitate — one reason almost toddlers can moo soon afterwards they say "Mama."

Lots of tots are eager to learn about their furry or feathered friends (specially if you already have a family pet). Endeavor a few of these brute activities to boost your child's cognition of the natural world.

Eat like an animate being.

Turn snack fourth dimension into a lesson on what animals eat by filling a muffin tin with animal-friendly snacks: berries for bears, pumpkin seeds for birds, sliced bananas for monkeys or baby carrots for rabbits.

As your munchkin munches, have him try to judge which animals adopt each food — he can even match the treat to a lineup of pictures you've printed out. (Add a few sneaky snacks, like mini marshmallows — your little one will recall it's hilarious that they're a favorite of those junk-food fiends, raccoons.)

Speak their linguistic communication.

You already quack like a duck or meow like a cat merely to brand your sweetie smile. But those aren't just silly sounds. They really teach your child an important lesson in animate being behavior — that animals use noises to communicate.

To help the noesis sink in, play this animal activeness: Oink, bawl, moo or growl, and encounter if your tot can guess which animate being you're imitating. With an older preschooler, yous tin name an fauna and ask her to make the audio ("What does a king of beasts say?").

Build your own zoo.

Most kids have a menagerie of stuffed animals, so why non give these hirsuite friends a home? Begin the perfect habitat, like a mixing bowl of (imaginary) water for his stuffed seal. Or cutting out some brownish construction paper to create a mud puddle for his plush pig.

Group animals from similar places: body of water creatures in one corner, barnyard critters in another. When you've finished your DIY zoo, accept the grand bout together.

Do a trip the light fantastic toe.

Your munchkin probably loves to get her groove on, so the next time y'all turn on the tunes to dance with your toddler, transform the party into an animate being activity.

Accept turns calling out unlike creatures to imitate. The ii of you can waddle like a penguin, prance like a deer, lumber like a conduct or slither like a snake. To boost more large-motor skills, run across if your tot tin balance on one leg like a flamingo, tiptoe like a giraffe or climb up the couch like a chimpanzee.

Spotter nature in action.

Your backyard is the perfect setting for lots of animal activities, including building homemade bird and squirrel feeders and then seeing who visits.

Assistance your toddler slather peanut butter onto a pinecone, and so scroll it in a tray of birdseed. Hang the finished feeder on a tree branch with a bit of twine, and make time each twenty-four hours to lookout man for visitors. (Reapply the peanut butter and seeds as needed.)

If you can't name every bird, a child-friendly field guide can aid you place whatever alights.

Become a tracker.

Whatever kid who'south seen an episode of Blue'due south Clues understands that animals leave behind hand prints. Brand your ain Blue's Clues–way hunt by printing out paper versions of real animal tracks (just Google "printable brute tracks") and hiding them around the house.

Whenever your tot finds a hand print, ask him to gauge the critter that created it. Upwards the fun by pressing your pipsqueak's paw in washable paint then stamping information technology onto a piece of paper. What a terrific track for Grandma to notice!