Animal heads and tails

Recommended Age: 3 years

Purpose: For the child to broaden their understanding of animals and the way their bodies are made up

Level of Parent Involvement: Low, once the resources have been prepared and the child has been shown they may work independently

Prerequisites

Materials

Preparation

Note; print the set without labels for younger children, print the set with labels for older children to encourage reading practice

Using a coloured marker or coloured dot stickers, mark one half of the back of the cards (either mark all of the heads or all of the tails)
Laminate the cards
Cut the cards on the black lines to separate
Place the cards into the basket/tray

Steps

Invite the child, bringing the prepared materials to the child’s table or mat on the floor
Let the child know they are going to do some matching work with animals
Take the cards from the basket/tray and mix up on the table/mat
Show the child how to divide the cards into 2 piles, using the coloured dot to separate the cards into a pile of heads and a pile of tails
Take the pile of heads and lay them out, leaving enough space between each to place the matching tail
Name the head of each animal with the child
Take the pile of tails and invite the child to match with the corresponding head
When the child has finished, they may sort the cards back into piles and match again

Variations

The child may design ‘made up’ animals by placing heads and tails of animals together which don’t match, the child may then draw and name their animal creation
You may present the names of the animals which the child was unfamiliar with in the form of a 3-period lesson
You may introduce the child to animal classifications (amphibian, bird, fish, reptile, mammal) and the child may sort the cards according to their classification

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