Use dramatic play and let children pretend to be zookeepers or farmers taking care of animals. Provide plastic pail and shovels, hay to feed the animals, rubber boots, hats and pictures of animals or stuffed animals to work with and care for.
Read books about animals in your story time circle, then have children make their own animal book. Each child can create an animal picture they might see in the zoo and then the teacher binds the book together and students create their own cover.
Make paper plate lions by giving each child a paper plate. Hand out strips of brown paper and glue to the edges of the plate. Let children draw in their own lion face.
Play freeze tag with animals. Have students move around the classroom like animals and when the teacher tags them they have to freeze. To be unfrozen, the child has to make the animal's sound.