One way to use animals to teach colors and numbers is by using bird eggs. Print and cut out pictures of blue robins' eggs, brown-red wrens' eggs, or the variously colored domestic chicken eggs. Group and count, or give kids a chart with a list of numbers and have them glue the eggs with the proper number next to the numeral. Students then label each entry with a color.
A picture book version of listing numbers and colors with animals can feature animals with their young. Flash drawings of geese with four gray goslings, or a ewe with two white lambs. Yellow ducklings or, of course, brown rabbits can fill in for the larger numbers. Bright red striped coral snakes can lay up to 20 eggs in a clutch.
Pick up the old "Schoolhouse Rocks" videos or audio recordings to play with number operations and animal images. The lyrics for "The Four-Legged Zoo" teach multiples of four while listing ibexes, coyotes, vicuna and kudus. " In "Elementary, My Dear" a bright parade of animals helps students count by twos.
Number and color lists can be applied in a unique way to Navajo-Churro sheep. This distinct breed of sheep originally came to the United States from Spain in the 1600s. Churro sheep had become rare and are now in the midst of a restoration, as of the date of publication; owners carefully detail colors and patterns, and the sheep can be classified by this. Churro males or females have varying and not always even numbers of horns by individual, so that one sheep could have one, two, three, four, five or six horns. If you are fortunate enough to be able to visit a site of Churro sheep preservation, kids can try out their number and color identification skills there.