This zoo small world from Teaching 2 and 3 year olds was originally designed for the book Tuff Spots but I think it works really well as a Dear Zoo activity for kids too. We made this elephant suncatcher as an Elmer craft but by using grey colours instead of (lots!) of colours for Elmer it would work well as a Dear Zoo craft. But my daughter really loves this book. And my husband told me to lighten up, get off my high horse and "it's only a kids' book. Don't worry about it." So maybe the lift up flaps are great. And how lovely it would be to have a zoo keep sending you animals on demand. Yeah, ok, it's a fab book. If you love reading zoo animal books with your kids then these are some more we think you might enjoy! He read the prototype he’d created to the 18-month-old son of a friend. “He was quiet all the way through, and when I got to the end, he said ‘again’. So I read it again and he went ‘again’. And I read it again, and then he said, ‘again, again’. And he was sort of leaping about.”

Introduce the topic of ‘zoo’ and ‘zoo animals’. Discuss the animals in the book with your child. Explain that these are animals (excluding the puppy) that we find in the wild or in a zoo. Encourage you child to think of other animals they might find in the zoo/ wild. However the Dear Zoo: Noisy book is well nigh perfect. It includes the fun element of flaps, teaches both the names of the animals and how to identify them. It invites questions such as: “How big is the crate?” and “What sort of animal might fit inside there?” It uses language with simple repetition, but also creatively. It has clear, attractive and humorous line drawings in bold colours.This wonderful lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo has been a favorite with toddlers and parents alike ever since it was first published. This colourful book excites young readers who love to lift the flaps and discover the animals the zoo has sent—a monkey, a lion, and even an elephant! Fold each color paper in half, then in half again, then in half again! You should end up with 8 columns. Next, take a Nilla wafer and break it in half. Each half will become an ear. Put the ears on the side of the monkey’s head. Read the book again but this time ask your child to place the right animal into their box and make it pop up as each animal appears in the book. Make this cute giraffe finger puppet from I Heart Crafty Things or this paper bag giraffe inspired by Greedy Steve

There are loads of fabulous Dear Zoo activities for kids in this post from You Clever Monkey including a lift the flap drawing prompt and animal weighing activity Collect a range of animal figurines/ toys to match the animals in the book (Lion, Giraffe, Camel, Elephant, Monkey, Snake, Frog, Puppy). As you are reading the book you should introduce each animal toy as you come across them in the story. To support your child’s attention and listening skills, when you re-read the book you should give your child one of the animals and encourage them to hold up the animal when it appears in the book.As a class, discuss the story, then list and recordanimals in the story and identify theadjective used to describe each animal. Eg. But this book has a delightful extra feature. It is a “noisy” book! And I can assure you (because I’ve done this myself) that if you accidentally sit on it, you will find that it might trumpet at you, or chatter like a monkey, or even (and this is a bit scary if you’re not expecting it!) even hiss like a snake!

You can now introduce other sub-categories of animals to your child (e.g. sea animals; farm animals; pets). Go through each sub-category one at a time, encouraging your child to think of animals in each sub-category. Add the nose and mouth on the Nilla wafer with your edible marker and voila! You’re done! They’re almost too cute to eat! When you are re-reading the story, pause for 5 – 10 seconds before you open the flap and name the animal to see if your child can remember which animal comes next in the story. Regardless. Is it a bit hypocritical of me to be endorsing this book, based on my ethical beliefs that animals are not toys to be swapped, sold on, imprisoned or treated as inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah. Am I delivering a dark, subconscious message of irresponsibility to my child when I read her this?

More in Offers

Fantastic Fun and Learning has an edible small world zoo that might just be my favourite activity because marshmallows. We’ve always been a big fan of Tuff Spots and this would be great for that! These Dear Zoo story spoons from Crafts on Sea are super easy to make and perfect if you are working with a group They could roar like a lion, ribbit like a frog and woof like a puppy. But what noise does a camel make?