10+ Safari Activities for Preschool

If you’re studying the Safari Theme and looking for some fun, hands-on, learning ideas to go along with it, then this is for you! With a mix of indoor, outdoor, sensory, educational, and craft ideas, my collection of 10+ Safari Activities for Preschool has plenty of ideas to choose from!

I have also included some Free Printables in here, such as my Free Printable Safari Scavenger Hunt and Wild Animals Flashcards! Ideal if you’re short on time and need something you can download and print!

Take a minute to browse through all these low-prep Safari Activities and see which ones will suit your kids the best. I hope you enjoy them!

Pin text reads, 10+ low-prep safari activities and shows images of 7 of them.

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** If you’d like to see some more Preschool Learning Activities, here’s a few more I have…

10+ Fun Farm Activities for Preschoolers

10 Engaging Community Helpers Activities for Preschoolers

10 Low-Prep Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers

Pin text reads, free safari activities scavenger hunt and images shows the 2 page free printable

Safari Scavenger Hunt [Free Printable]

Great for those who learn best on the go, this fun Safari Scavenger Hunt is FREE to download and print off at home!

You can use it with your stuffed animals, safari animal figures, or cut out the squares with the pictures on them, and hide them around your room, house, or outdoor space! Then send your kids off with their Safari tick sheet to find all the Safari Animals!

This one is great for learning to identify the different animals they might see on a Safari, as well as increasing concentration, attention span, and observational skills.

check out the safari scavenger hunt here!

Safari Sensory Bin

I just love how easy and quick this Safari Sensory Bin was to throw together! And it used up a bunch of my scraps too! A great lesson in recycling!

Sensory bins are a great way to encourage imaginative and creative play amongst your preschoolers, as well as sharing ideas and language skills.

This one simply uses some colored paper at the bottom of the plastic tub, with scrunched-up tissue paper on top. I then used some kitchen roll tubes as logs, and trees, and added in some mini pom poms for texture and some pipe cleaners that could be vines or snakes!

The idea is that they can choose how to play and what they want things to be. I just set it up like this to get them started!

Pin text reads, free safari flashcards and there are two images, one zoomed in of the flashcards

Wild Animals Flashcards [FREE]

Do your little one’s learn well through flashcards? My daughter just loves being tested with some flashcards and then going off with them to test someone else! They don’t have to just be used like that though.

We have also matched up our safari animal figures with our cards when playing with a sensory bin, like the one above! They have also been used to play hide and seek, and ‘what animal starts with the letter…’

grab your free safari animals flahscards here!

Pin text reads, Animal tower, a fun preschool safari challenge - click here for more easy safari activities. Image is of 4 safari animals balanced in a tower.

Safari Animals Tower Challenge!

Looking for a fun, fine motor skills challenge?

This one is a great one to do individually or in pairs. Who can build the tallest tower? Or who can balance the most animals?

This activity takes lots of patience and concentration, always skills that need practicing amongst preschoolers I find!

Pin text reads, safari worksheets free printables and shows an image of all 4.

Safari Animals Activity Sheets [FREE]

Need an engaging quiet-time activity? A last-minute Safari theme worksheet for your kids? This small collection is great for practicing some of the basic skills our preschoolers are learning right now.

We have a scissor skills sheet which you can make more challenging by printing two sheets to a page, making them smaller! There is also a pre-writing activity sheet to practice pencil control, a counting sheet, and a pattern matching activity too! Plenty to keep them occupied and learning!

grab your free safari worksheets here!

Pin text reads safari sensory bin and shows 3 images of it.

Feed the Hungry Safari Animals

Feed the Hungry Safari Animals is a great sensory bin for practicing using cutlery! Any kids having difficulty with holding their cutlery securely, would benefit from this activity! Use spoons, or progress to a knife and fork to scoop up the food for the animals!

I used dyed rice in this one, but you could use a different filler, such as cereal if it needs to be taste-safe. Other options are grass, if you like to keep things natural, or pom poms if you want an extra challenge! They are always rolling off the spoon!

Grab the free safari animal faces printable here!

Pin text reads, rescue the animals safari sensory bin and shows an image of safari animal toys wrapped up in pipecleaners.

Rescue the Safari Animals

Looking for something fun to have set up when your kids first wake up in the morning, or first arrive at Preschool? How about some Safari Animals who need to be rescued and ‘set free’?

Removing these colored pipe cleaners is great for those fine motor skills and their concentration and patience too! A lovely group activity if you have a few kids.

Pin text reads, safari sensory bin preschool ideas, more sensory bin ideas here! and shows 3 images of it.

2 Minute Safari Sensory Bin

Looking for a Safari Sensory bin you can set up in 2 minutes? This rice sensory bin is for you!

I simply tipped in some rice and added a few trees. If you have a little more time, you could also add some rocks and a small tinfoil tray with blue rice in it for water. Then I popped in my Safari and it was ready! Ideal for last-minute!

Image shows a basket of safari animal toys and a piece of paper split into 3 sections, one has the word big in it, the next medium, and lastly small. A few animals are already categorised according to their size. Text on the image reads, more easy safari activities for preschoolers here!

Determining Size

Needing a fun way to teach size for math?

For this Safari Themed Activity, I simply popped a basket of Safari animals next to some paper with sections for big, medium, and small. Then I encouraged my daughter to separate the animals according to their size.

Pin text reads, free safari playdough mats and shows 3 images of them.

Safari Animals Counting Playdough Mats [FREE]

I’m forever hearing parents and professionals talk about how little kids learn best through play, and I fully believe it! These playdough mats are a great way to practice counting and number recognition, whilst playing!

These 10 FREE playdough counting mats can be downloaded and printed off at home, right now. A great way to incorporate math into sensory play!

grab your safari counting playdough mats here!

Pin text reads free printable safari shapes activity free pdf and shows different angles and close ups of it as well as an image of it printed out.

Safari Animal Shape Match

Looking for a way to make learning shapes more fun?

This Safari Shape Matching printable is free to grab here! You can use it as a cut and stick worksheet for your kids, or laminate the board and animal shapes to make it a reusable puzzle!

Grab your safari animals shape match here!

Pin text reads, safari sensory bin for fine motor skills more sensory bin ideas here! There are 3 image of different angles of this safari animals sensory bin.

Fine Motor Skills Animal Rescue!

A fun, fine motor skills activity, this one is all about finding and then ‘rescuing’ your animals from the swamp they’ve got stuck in!

I’ve used mini pom poms for this one, as they make a great covering and are easy to move around.

Image is of a basket of safari toy animals and a piece of paper with pattern and plain written on it and a line down the middle. A few animals have been categorised already as to whether they have a pattern on them or are a plain color. Text reads, more easy safari activities for preschoolers here!

Pattern Recognition

Are your little one’s learning about patterns in math right now? If so, this is a great way to bring that learning in through our Safari Theme.

Simply grab a basket of Safari animals (or use my free flashcards available further up this post), and a big piece of paper with a section for plain animals and a section for those with patterns. If you want to categorise them down further, you could have a section for those with a spotty pattern and one for those with stripes.

This one is great for those kids who learn best by being hands-on, rather than through worksheets at a desk!

I hope you found lots of fun Safari Activities here that will work for you and your little ones! I am busy working away on a number of different themes just now, alongside the Farm Theme and Community Helpers Theme which I have already covered. Make sure to keep checking back for more theme ideas over the next few months!