Create animal crafts out of household odds and ends. Make ladybugs out of egg cartons. Cut an egg carton into single cups and paint the cups with white acrylic paint. Let it dry. Give the preschoolers the cups and let them decorate the ladybugs with red paint for the body and black paint for the head. Have them add a stripe and black dots along the back. Add white dots for the eyes. For another activity, make turkey handprints by having the children trace their hands onto white paper. Make sure the fingers are spread apart. Have them decorate the turkey with glitter, paint, crayons or markers.
Teach preschoolers animal-themed songs, such as "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Mary had a Little Lamb," "The Farmer in the Dell" and "Three Blind Mice." Or teach them popular nursery rhymes, such as "Hickory, Dickory Dock," "Little Miss Muffet" and "Hey Diddle Diddle." Have the children act out the rhymes with hand puppets or cutouts. Have them clap along or dance to the songs.
Have your preschoolers engage in a game of animal charades. Place a variety of stuffed animals in a pillow case. If none are available, cut out pictures from the Internet or from magazines and place them in a paper bag. Have one child choose an animal and act it out. Allow the other children to take turns guessing which animal the child is depicting. For another activity, let your preschoolers go fishing by creating a variety of fish cut out of construction paper. Write simple instructions on each fish, such as "find a blue toy" or "count to 10." Place the fish in a bowl or a box and let each child take turns choosing a fish and performing the activity.
Let your preschoolers dip animal-shaped cookie cutters, rubber stamps or sponges into paint and stamp the animal shapes onto paper. If you are teaching the alphabet to your preschooler, download various animal coloring pages from the Internet and provide your preschooler with an animal for each letter of the alphabet. Or print out images of each animal from the Internet and allow your preschooler to draw a tree or a garden for the animal. (Use the bird Xenops for the letter "X" if you have difficulty finding an animal that starts with this letter.)