Welcome to the playful world of The Core Coaches Prek pet theme activities! Throughout this blog post, you will encounter a tail-wagging lineup of fun and engaging learning resources to keep kids engaged as they explore the exciting world of pets.
From a pet themed read aloud to creating a puppy leash during a STEM project, these lessons will excite preschoolers about their furry friends while engaging them with a core curriculum. So, grab your favorite stuffed animal and get ready to unleash some fun—because when it comes to pets, the learning possibilities are endless!
Pet Lesson Plans for Preschool
While pets are a topic that most students will be excited to learn about, it still requires some planning on the teacher’s part. However, we know that most teachers do not have the time they may like to prepare amazing lesson plans. Therefore, we did the planning for you!
In this preschool bundle, you will find lesson plans for five areas: reading and literacy, inquiry and exploration, math, science, and circle time. This includes DAILY lesson plans for EVERY activity and enough activities for a week’s worth of learning.
Come with us as we share more about these pet themed lesson plans!
PreK Pet Read Aloud
As with all of our PreK learning bundles, this pet theme activities bundle begins with a read aloud. The book we selected for this bundle is a PreK favorite, Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown.
This humorous book follows a bear named Lucy who finds a boy in the forest and decides to keep him as a pet. Lucy names the little boy Squeaker and soon learns that having a child as a pet is MUCH more challenging than expected! If you have never read this book it is truly a delight to read and share with students.
To help you enjoy sharing this book with your preschoolers, we took care of the time-consuming work of lesson planning. This means a read aloud that includes interactive lesson plans for up to five days of learning.
Providing multiple lesson plans is not just about supporting you as the teacher but also about supporting students in reading. Inviting students back to a book over multiple days allows them to dive deeper into the text and make connections to the characters and events. Moreover, it gives them time to fall in love with the story and reading!
Children Make Terrible Pets Reading Activities
Below is a sneak peek of the different reading activities included in this preschool read aloud for Children Make Terrible Pets. Use this sneak peek to determine how to use this read aloud in your classroom.
- Comprehension questions for before, during, and after reading Children Make Terrible Pets
- Whole group response to text activities and questions for Children Make Terrible Pets
- Response to text worksheets and interactive activities for Children Make Terrible Pets
- Writing pages and prompts for Children Make Terrible Pets
- Vocabulary cards and worksheets aligned with language in Children Make Terrible Pets
- Quiz to use with Children Make Terrible Pets
- Retelling puppets to use with Children Make Terrible Pets
- Craftivity template for the book Children Make Terrible Pets
Depending on how many days you have available for reading you may choose to use ALL of these activities or only the first three days of comprehension questions and response to text activities.
PreK Pet Activities
While preschoolers need guidance and support in their learning, they also crave independence. Therefore, we created several stations to guide student learning while providing independence.
Moreover, these exploration stations engage preschoolers through various activities that are all centered around hands on learning. Let’s take a look at the activities for the nine exploration stations.
- Explore: Explore and read the pages. Set the items on the enclosure.
- Color: Color the pictures, or use the code to color the pictures.
- Match: Pick a pet card then find its match.
- Make: Use play dough to make the item on the mat.
- Build: Use blocks to build the pictures on the cards.
- Move: Flip over a card and move like a pet.
- Sort: Sort the items on the correct mat.
- Write/Draw: Draw or write about your favorite pet.
- Create: Make the fishbowl craft.
As you can see, each exploration station aligns with the pet theme to support student learning with a common theme across areas of learning. Furthermore, each learning task engages different senses to enhance the development of fine motor skills aligned with academic development.
What’s Included in Pet Exploration Stations?
As mentioned above, exploration stations are designed to support student independence. That’s why all of the materials are color-coded and have visual icons which match the instruction cards and work board. This will help students complete the work on their own as they check each task off on their own personal checklist.
To further support you with implementing these stations in your classroom we created all of the materials you will need to get started. In addition to the lesson plans for each station listed above, you will also get the following:
- 9 printable exploration stations
- Text to read aloud to students
- Tent signs for each station
- Editable work-boards
- Editable checklists for students
- Labels
- Letter banner template
You may choose to set up all station activities in one area or distribute them to a few different locations in the classroom. You may also choose if you want students to visit the exploration station(s) throughout the week or all in one day. There is complete flexibility in how you use these stations, so choose what works best in your classroom.
Pet Themed Math for Preschool
The pet themed lessons don’t need to stop with read alouds and exploration stations. They can be used for ALL subject areas, like math!
Take a look at the nine math stations we created that combine math concepts with pets:
- Count and Clip: Counting Pets
- Write and Count: Counting Pet Food
- Graphing: Graphing Pets
- Measurement: Yarn Lengths
- Doghouse Shapes: Matching 2D Shapes
- Pattern Cards: Pet Patterns
- Roll and Count: Counting Goldfish
- Number Recognition: Counting and Subitizing
- Spin and Cover: Hamster Wheel
As you can see, these math stations engage preschoolers with several important math concepts, such as counting, number recognition, patterns, 2d shapes, measurement, writing numbers, number recognition, and graphing.
Pet Themed Literacy for Preschool
Beyond math concepts, this theme of pets can also be applied to literacy skills. Therefore, we included 10 literacy lessons with our pet theme activities math centers. That’s right, you get activities for math AND literacy centers in ONE resource!
Like our math centers, these literacy centers cover a wide range of skills and concepts considered part of a core preschool curriculum. You’ll notice activities that support students with practicing rhyming, letter recognition, counting syllables, letter writing, initial sounds, upper and lowercase recognition, fine motor, name writing, and free writing.
- Pet Paths: L to R Print Concepts
- Syllable Sort: Pet Words
- Letter Writing and Fine Motor: Bird Seed Letter Writing
- Initial Sounds: Bone Match
- Uppercase and Lowercase Match: Pet Cage Match
- On My Own Craft: Make a Cat
- Writing Own Name: Dog Craft
- Color Match: Matching Collars
- Same and Different: Cat and Dog Differences
- Free Write: Pet Writing Center
Just like all of the pet resources in this bundle, these literacy and math centers come with detailed lesson plans. Moreover, they come with all the materials needed to implement these in your classroom as printable or digital activities.
Pet Themed Science Activities
It’s never too early to introduce kids to the world of STEM! That’s why we have created several engaging STEM projects just for preschoolers. Including our pet themed STEM project.
In this PreK STEM project, students continue to explore the work of pets as they design a puppy leash. Just like our other STEM activities for preschoolers, this STEM activity helps your PreK kids explore, plan, and create using common, everyday materials.
To help guide young learners through this process we have created step-by-step lesson plans to guide you through introducing the students to the STEM Exploration Process. Furthermore, you will find additional resources to further support student learning and inquiry
- STEM Exploration Process posters
- STEM Event and Exploration posters
- Vocabulary Cards
- Explore Science Connections with QR Codes and an Infographic
- Materials List
- Planning Poster
- Recording Sheets
- Reflection Sheets
Pet Themed Circle Time
A preschool daily lesson plan wouldn’t be complete without plans for circle time! Especially circle time lesson plans that introduce and review the theme students are exploring.
Ready to see the exciting pet themed circle time activities you get with this bundle? Keep reading!
Below is an overview of the pets themed circle time resources we created. These activities provide young learners with fun, engaging, and educational opportunities to start each day thinking about pets.
Moreover, these circle time lessons are designed to help develop positive relationships and important social skills as classmates sit together as a whole group to begin the school day.
What’s included in the pets themed PreK circle time packet:
- teacher overview
- detailed circle time lesson plans
- print or projectable text
- 2 reread/review the text activities
- 3 responding to text activities
- song lyrics with a familiar tune + 2 corresponding activities
- pocket chart poem + 2 corresponding activities
- 3 game-style whole class activities
- 5 corresponding independent worksheets
- 1 emergent reader
While all of the lessons included in this pet theme bundle are designed to be used together, you may also choose to use them independently from one another. You choose what best supports the way you want to introduce your preschoolers to the wonderful world of pets!
