How to Make Your Own Zoo Game

Make the zoo game board with an 8.5-by-11-inch piece of poster board or cardboard. You can also use a piece of colorful card stock and have it laminated at a copy store or teacher supply shop for added stability once the game board is complete.

With a marker and ruler, draw five straight tracks across the board lengthwise and divide them into 10 spaces each. This will allow up to five players to play the game at the same time.

Decorate the squares on each track with a variety of flat embellishments, such as animal stickers, rubber-stamped images of leaves or small die-cuts of animal paw prints. Write "Start the Adventure" on the leftmost square on each track and "Out of the Zoo" on the rightmost square.

Cut at least 50 2-by-3-inch pieces of colorful card stock with scissors or a paper trimmer to use as zoo game cards.

Use colorful markers to write simple questions on half the cards, such as: "How many legs does a spider have?" and "What animal is taller: a flamingo or snake?" and "What are two zoo animals that have stripes?" Write fun tasks on the remaining cards, such as: "Run across the room like a cheetah," "Dance for 10 seconds like a monkey" and "Name the animal that makes this sound." The last one obviously requires you to make an animal noise.

Buy at least five plastic animal figurines that the kids can use as game pieces. Get figurines like a zebra, tiger, giraffe, hippo, flamingo, lion, monkey or coiled snake that are about 1-inch long so they'll fit into the spaces.

Have the kids select an animal figurine and place it on a "Start the Adventure" square. The youngest player draws a card first. If she answers the question correctly or completes the task, she gets to move her animal one space. If she doesn't, the first child to give the right answer or complete the task gets to move her animal up. The first player to reach "Out of the Zoo" wins.