Animal Charades

Activity Overview

Holding the body in specific positions helps to activate our proprioceptive and vestibular sensory systems. This helps children feel and understand where their body is in space, while also encouraging them to exercise the gross motor muscles in the legs, abdomen, as well as the muscles in the upper body. Visualizing and acting out animals also stimulates the child’s imagination and critical thinking skills, helping them bring that creative thinking into all areas of their work.

What You Need

• Animal Charade Cards

• Your creative body!

Steps

1. This is a family activity! It is helpful to at least have 2-3 people to play this game.

2. Remind your child that while acting out or getting ready to act out the animals, that they cannot tell the guesser what they are.

3. Mix up the animal cards and place them in a stack upside down.

4. Have the child choose one card, and look at it. Have them think about how to move their body to be this animal for at least 10 seconds on their own.

5. The child then has 90 seconds to act out the animal and for the guesser to figure out what animal they are.

6. The child can do all the cards, but we encourage the adult working with the student to act out a couple as well so that the student can have a chance to play the role of guesser as well as actor.

Guiding Questions

• Can you move your body in a different way?

• Can you make a sound like this animal?

Extensions

• Add to your animal card deck by asking your student to draw the animals on index cards or pieces of paper.

• If your student is starting to write, have them write down different animals and use those words as your prompts for the charades game.