One of my preschooler’s favorite things to learn about is animals. She is quite obsessed actually. Any time she sees a picture of an animal she immediately erupts into a ‘discourse’ of every animal that she knows. Her discourses can be quite silly since she doesn’t have the words to say half of the animals that she wants to talk about, but she is sure to babble away, regardless. This animal gross motor activity for preschoolers is the perfect way to continue fostering her love for animals while using up some of her boundless energy.

Animal Gross Motor Activity for Preschoolers

You can play this activity many ways which makes it great for whatever situation you are in. It’s quite possible that we’ve done versions of this while riding in the car or walking around a store.

First, with kids who are not very good at following directions, like Shiloh, you can just call out random animals and let them decide to imitate or not. That is the whole purpose of the activity. Act like an animal.

I know for some kids that’s not a real stretch of the imagination… *sigh*

Shiloh has favorite animals that she likes to imitate on a regular basis.

Cow

Horse

Bunny

Chicken (her absolute favorite since we taught her the chicken dance…lol!)

Dog

Cat

Lion

By randomly calling out the names of animals, I’m able to assess which animals she needs more exposure to in order to understand what they are.

Elephant

Zebra

Pig

Snake

Another way to play the game would also to involve reading skills. Write the names of each animal on a card and have the child randomly select a card and act out the animal written on the card.

For pre-readers, you can print pictures of animals on cards and have the child select an animal to act out.

You could also play Simon Says! Instead of individual actions, have “Simon” call out animals to act like.

Or Follow the Leader and have the person in front imitate different animals and the kids behind copy the actions.

Here are some other activities that you might enjoy for an animal theme: