Animal Families Game

Activity Overview

Learning about animals is interesting and fun for young children. In this activity, students will make connections between baby animals and their grown-up caregiver animals, explore the sounds that different animals make and make these sounds themselves! For this matching scavenger hunt game, two people are needed to play - either the student and their caregiver or two students!

What You Need

• Animal Family Cards – Print the cards and cut them individually (separate the animals so that the grown-up animal and the baby animal are apart)

• Be sure your child has an Epic Books account so they can access the stories needed for this activity

• A room or space to play the game

• Optional: Number Dot Cards from the Number Dot Cards activity

Steps

1. Read the book Over in the Arctic: Where the Cold Winds Blow. As you read the story, encourage your child to point to or pick up the Number Dot Card that corresponds to the number on each page. You can also discuss the names of the grown-up animals and the baby animals.

2. Divide the Animal Family Cards into two piles – one pile with the grown-up animals and one pile with the baby animals. Hide the cards of one pile throughout a room or space (For example: Hide all the baby animal cards in the living room – under a couch pillow, behind a table, on a bookshelf). Keep the other pile of cards together nearby.

3. Designate one player as the Caller and the other player as the Seeker. The Caller flips over one card from the pile. Both players make the corresponding animal sound (If the caller flips over a card with a pig on it, both players oink like a pig). The Seeker then searches for the matching card (in this case, the piglet) until they find it. If the Seeker finds another non-matching card, they can return it to its hiding place. Once the Seeker finds the matching card, they keep it in their hand and begin making the animal sound to the Caller until they find their way back to their grown-up and the pile of cards!

4. Set the matching pair aside, and repeat Step three until all animal matches have been found, Then, switch roles or try out one of the extensions below!

Guiding Questions

• What animal is this?

• What is the name of the grown-up animal? The baby animal?

• What number is this?

• How many [seals] do you see? Let’s count them.

• What sound does a [seal] make?

Extensions

• Instead of keeping the same roles (Caller and Seeker) the whole game, switch roles each turn.

• Read other versions of the grown-up and baby animals story, including:

  • Over in the Meadow

  • Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef

  • Over in the Grasslands: On an African Savanna

  • Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme

  • Over in the Forest: Come and Take a Peek

• Lay all the cards face up on a table or the floor. Make pairs by matching the adult animal and baby animal.

• Play a memory game! Flip all the cards face down on a table or the floor. Take turns flipping up two cards to try to find a matching pair.

• Lay all the cards face up on a table or the floor. Gently toss a counter or small object on top of the cards. Make the animal noise of the card on which the counter lands.