Purchase or print two identical sets of animal flash cards. Place the animal cards face down on a table. The first player turns over two cards. If the cards match, the child keeps the pair and goes again. If not, flip the cards back over and have the next child turn over two cards. The child with the most animal pairs at the end of the game wins a small prize. For another memory game, place several plastic animals on a tray. Have the children sit in a circle and place the tray in the middle. Take the tray out of sight and remove one animal. When you bring the tray back to the circle, the first player to tell you which animal is missing wins the game.
Have the children sit in a group and sing songs about animals; for example, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Teasing Mr. Crocodile" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Divide the children into two small groups and have them choose their favorite animal song. Help the groups make up hand or body movements for the song to perform for the rest of the class.
Purchase or print several sets of animal flash cards. Pass the cards out to the children, making sure that each animal is given to more than one child. When you say "Go," all the children must walk or crawl around the room making the noise of the animal on his or her card. The object of the game is for each player to find the other players making the same animal noise. For a simpler sound game, have the children sit in a circle. Each child must say the name of an animal and make the sound the animal makes.
Play a game of "Who am I?" using animals. Tape a picture of an animal on the back of each child. The children go around the room asking yes or no questions about their animal. They can ask questions like "Am I a large animal?" or "Can you find me on a farm?" Keep playing until each child guesses his or her animal. Another group activity is animal bingo. Print bingo cards with animal pictures in the squares. Call out animal names and have the children mark their cards. Tell the children to yell "I love animals" instead of "bingo," when they win.