Cats, Dogs, and Pets Preschool Activities and Games

Pets Learning Center Ideas

Dramatic Play Area
Transform your dramatic play center into a Veterinarian’s Office. Provide a variety of stuffed animals, a medical kit with props, white dress shirts for lab coats, a clipboard, veterinarian's office labels, a telephone, and notepads and pencils. Let children make appointments and write down prescriptions.

Dog House
Let children help you decorate a large appliance box and turn it into a pet house. Provide stuffed dog animals and let children take their pets for walks, play with them, etc., and then place them back in to the dog house to rest. 

Visit a Pet Store

Pets Preschool Math Activities

Pet Match
Find pet stickers or pet images and make two pair of matching cards and laminate. Have children match and sort the pet cards. How many dogs? How many cats? How many pets have four legs? Have feathers?

Feed the Dogs Numbers 1-5 Counting
Provide plastic dog dishes or bowls and label each dish with the numbers 1-5. Place a stuffed toy dog behind each bowl. Cut dog bone shapes out of craft foam. Let children identify the number and feed the dog the matching number of bones. 

Dog Bone Sequencing
Cut out many different sized dog bones. Ask children to line up the bones from largest to smallest and vice versa.

Dog Bone Numbers
Cut out ten dog bone shapes. Number them from one to ten. Ask children to line up the shapes from one to ten and from ten to one.

Dog Bone Colors
Cut out dog bone shapes in different colors. Ask children to sort the shapes by color.

Dog Bone Sort 
Supply children with plenty of dog bone shapes of many sizes and colors. Ask children to sort the shapes by size or color.

Pets Circle Time Activities and Games

Do you have a pet? Graphing Activity
On the board, draw a T-graph with the categories (yes and no) and the title Do you have a pet? on top. Ask children if they have a pet and let them place their name in the matching column. Count if more children have a pet or not. Then make another column with the title: What type of pet would you like to have? Ask children what types of animals would make a good pet. List all their responses.Then ask each child what kind of pet they would like if they could chose one! 

Writing Prompt and Classbook: My Pet _______
Have children draw a picture of the type of pet they would like to have on a piece of paper. Ask questions such as: What name would you give your pet? Where would you keep your pet? What does it eat? What would you play with your pet? Assemble pages and bind in to a classbook.  

What Kind of Pet? Guessing Game
Children sit in a circle. Encourage children to think of a pet. Then, invite one child after another to go to the center of the circle and to pretend to be that animal. Let the other children guess the animal. 

If I Were a Dog/Cat
Children sit in a circle. Say, "If I were a dog, I would ..." Explain to children that they should think about something a dog likes to do. Then, roll a small ball to a child. Together say, "If I were a dog, I would..." (Example; Dig a hole.) Let the child finish the sentence and all children make the matching movement. 

Pets and Owners 
Have half your children pretend to be pet owners and let the other half pretend to be their pets. Have the owners do pretend activities such as feeding, walking, petting, and playing with their "pets." Then let children reverse roles.

Free Dogs, Cats, and Pets Coloring Pages and Worksheets

Dog hand puppet craft	Cat whiskers Numbers	Dog Coloring page	Cat in the Hat Coloring page	Bones Name tags

View our Twiggle Magazine Pets Edition for more free pet activities, crafts, lessons, and games.

View also our KidsSoup Dogs, Cats, and Pets Crafts 

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

Other great pet resources:

GOLDFISH: An Interactive Story By Linda Befeld http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/trc/2007/manual/goldfish.html

Animal Planet

Care for Animals by the American Veterinary Medical Association