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Animal Zoo Games

When planning zoo birthday parties or teaching students about zoo animals, organize zoo games to keep children entertained and to teach them about animals. Encourage children to play along by awarding small zoo animal prizes to game winners. With some preparation and zoo animal game ideas, you have everything you need to get started.

Zoo Animal Walk
- Print several pictures of zoo animals, such as giraffes, zebras, snakes, tigers and monkeys, on card stock paper. Laminate the pictures to make them more durable. Scatter the pictures all over the ground, so there's one less picture than you have players. Print smaller pictures of the same animals and place them in a bowl. Play jungle music and tell the children walk around the pictures. When the music stops, they must stand on the animal pictures. Draw a picture from the bowl and the player standing on that animal wins a prize.
Guess the Animal
- Tell the children to sit in a circle and pass out cards with the names of zoo animals or pictures of zoo animals. Tell the children to not to let anyone else see their animals. One at a time, each child must make the noise of the animal he has on his paper. The first player to guess what the animal is wins a prize. For a variation, tell the children stand in the middle of the circle and act out the animals.
Peanut Hunt
- Create an elephant peanut hunt using unshelled peanuts. Hide the peanuts around the play area and give each child a small paper sack. When you say "Find those peanuts," the children must run around to collect as many peanuts as they can. The child who finds the most peanuts wins the game. For a variation, use candy circus peanuts instead of shelled peanuts. To make more winners, draw a star on a couple of the peanuts. The children who find those peanuts win prizes, too.
Monkey Relay Race
- Divide the children into two teams. Mark a starting line and a run-to line about 20 feet apart. Tell the teams line up at the starting line. Give the first player in each team line a spoon and an unpeeled banana. When you say "Race," the first player of each line must place the banana in the spoon. They must race to the run-to line and back to the starting line. They will hand the banana and spoon to the next player in line who must do the same thing. If players' bananas fall off the spoons, they must start over at the starting line. The first team to finish the relay race wins the game.

Kids Games