We’ve gathered a lovely bunch of ‘Dear Zoo’ activities for nursery children above to help support your teaching of the brilliant storybook, ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell. From picture cards, PowerPoints, games, posters and more, you're sure to find the perfect resource for you and your class. Incorporating these lovely activities after reading the storybook is a great way to engage children further with the story and help bring it to life! 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. As he hasn't ruled out one day becoming a zookeeper, Ben found the premise of this book intriguing; a kid writes a letter to the zoo and gets free stuff. Sounds great, right? After all, he's currently unemployed and can't very well buy his own things, let alone afford a pet. Also there's flaps and those always blow his mind. These Where Are The Puppy Picture Cards are a super fun way to help teach positional language. With cute illustrations, encourage your little pups to describe where the doggy is in each picture. Is he ‘behind’ the dog house? ‘In front’ of the grass? This Will the Zoo Send me a Pet Song is set to the music of ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’ and is a catchy wee number to sing along to! Nursery rhymes aren’t just a joyful way to pass the time, but can be extremely effective in children’s language acquisition.

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!

Adjectives which relate to each animal, e.g.'They sent me an elephant, but he was too big', They sent me a snake, but he was too scary'. This interactive, lift-the-flap picturebook engages young children’s interest and invites them to take part from beginning to end. This is a classic story which keeps children guessing about what new pet will arrive next in the post, building their interest and enjoyment with each parcel.

This Zoo Animals Writing Frames resource is perfect for budding writers. Each sheet comes with a lovely illustration to prompt all our little poets, writer and dreamers to conjure their own tales, rhymes, or write a lovely note to someone. Kids Craft Room shares how to make an articulated snake or this snake craft for kids is great for supporting scissor skills When I "read" it, I had a box marked "From the Zoo" (as if the kids could read it) and I would just say the same line over and over again: I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet..." (That's a direct quote from the book) and then I'd pull out a different puppet from the box and bring it to life for a few seconds. It was fun to have the parents and talking kids chant the line over and over with me. And it was even more fun to see the children's excitement when a "live" animal came out of the box. Priceless. If you love reading zoo animal books with your kids then these are some more we think you might enjoy!These Dear Zoo story spoons from Crafts on Sea are super easy to make and perfect if you are working with a group 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.

We made this toilet roll dog craft for Valentines Day but it could be easily adapted by not using the hearts. The bright animal drawingsprovide more informationto the reader and 'clues'.Each animal is presented in a different way (e.g.a crate, box, basket),and each child can see a glimpse of the animal to enable them to predict whichanimal it might be. Make this cute giraffe finger puppet from I Heart Crafty Things or this paper bag giraffe inspired by Greedy Steve This story is a fun introduction to animals and their characteristics. It is written in the first person, with repetitive sentences. The nature of repetitiveness enables young readers to predict and engage with the story.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. The text is simple, direct and rythmical with a lot of repetition, making it ideal for Early Readers. A repetitive pattern iseasily recognised by junior primary children and repeated throughout the text.