Dear Zoo Book and Toy Gift Set: Lion

Product Information

If you have a copy of Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell you can read it and play with this craft at the same time. He still remembers the day he came up with the concept for Dear Zoo. “I thought: well, children do like animals, and the flap has got to be legitimate, it’s got to be doing something essential – the content, the text and the flap all have to work together. So what if the flap was a box or something? And I immediately thought of zoos, because when they send an animal from one place to another, it goes in a crate.”

This review is for Dear Zoo: Noisy Book, which I think is the best of all the many versions and formats. It begins: Is it munch munch munch? Or you can search the internet together to find out. What words can they think of to describe each animal? 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. Explain that we are going to visit Australia Zoo in a few weeks and would like some informationto help us plan our visit.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: 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'. These Dear Zoo story spoons from Crafts on Sea are super easy to make and perfect if you are working with a group Cut the columns apart, then start making the snake. Use a stapler to connect the chains. If you’re going to write on them or decorate them, make sure to do that first!

Make this cute giraffe finger puppet from I Heart Crafty Things or this paper bag giraffe inspired by Greedy Steve We made this toilet roll dog craft for Valentines Day but it could be easily adapted by not using the hearts. 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. Collect a range of animal figurines/ toys to match the animals in the book (Lion, Giraffe, Camel, Elephant, Monkey, Snake, Frog, Puppy). As you are reading the book you should introduce each animal toy as you come across them in the story. To support your child’s attention and listening skills, when you re-read the book you should give your child one of the animals and encourage them to hold up the animal when it appears in the book. 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.Simple clauses featuring nouns (zoo)and verbs (wrote, send) e.g.'I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet' Easy Peasy and Fun has a super cute monkey paper plate craft or you could make this handprint monkey from Fun Handprint Art Toddler Approved have a whole week of zoo learning activities, I think this animal salt painting might be my favourite as it looks so pretty! More Zoo Books

Regardless. Is it a bit hypocritical of me to be endorsing this book, based on my ethical beliefs that animals are not toys to be swapped, sold on, imprisoned or treated as inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah. Am I delivering a dark, subconscious message of irresponsibility to my child when I read her this? This wonderful lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo has been a favorite with toddlers and parents alike ever since it was first published. This colourful book excites young readers who love to lift the flaps and discover the animals the zoo has sent—a monkey, a lion, and even an elephant!

Discover the Dear Zoo book

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! 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. There are loads of fabulous Dear Zoo activities for kids in this post from You Clever Monkey including a lift the flap drawing prompt and animal weighing activity 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. He read the prototype he’d created to the 18-month-old son of a friend. “He was quiet all the way through, and when I got to the end, he said ‘again’. So I read it again and he went ‘again’. And I read it again, and then he said, ‘again, again’. And he was sort of leaping about.”

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. You can now introduce other sub-categories of animals to your child (e.g. sea animals; farm animals; pets). Go through each sub-category one at a time, encouraging your child to think of animals in each sub-category. Read the book again but this time ask your child to place the right animal into their box and make it pop up as each animal appears in the book. Kids Craft Room shares how to make an articulated snake or this snake craft for kids is great for supporting scissor skills

Playing alongside the Dear Zoo story

First, decide on the pattern you’d like to make for your snake. We chose three colors, but you could choose however many you’d like! This is a great opportunity to practice making patterns. You can help your child to think of some adjectives to describe each animal. The elephant can be described as wrinkly, wise or enormous.