African Safari Early Years

This early years pack is full of resources to explore the African savannah, including wildlife, plants, science, mark making, phonics, math and geography. Click the image to the right to view the bundle listing on Etsy. This pack comes with an inspiration booklet full of suggestions on ways to use the resources, but here are some photo ideas on making the best of this pack.

African Safari - Early Years Complete Curriculum Unit | Preschool Activities Bundle

This pack contains multiple activities, as always I suggest choosing 4-8 to set out at a time, when your child has fully explored the activity and is no longer engaging in it, swap it out for another. Below are just a few suggestions on inviting activities you can set up to accompany this study.

BIOME MAPPING
This was super popular with our children, the blank map can be paired with the habitat discs and labels from the tray. Children used the matching poster mounted on the wall to look and compare where each biome fits onto their own map.

ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE
Here I set out the camouflage cards (3 sets of cards, showing an animal, pattern and where they camouflage) with some matching animal figures. 
​Children had fun pairing the animals with the cards, finding their patterns and then experimenting with the habitat locations to see where they would camouflage best.

SAFARI SMALL WORLD
We set up a busy small world safari using our Playmobil 123 safari set. We mounted some of the wildlife and nature posters onto the wall behind so children could use the posters to identify the animals they discovered on their safaris.

MARK MAKING
Here is our mark making basket, we added the writing pattern boards and wildlife handwriting strips to the basket along with a range of mark making tools. I also added some of these beautiful geometric colouring pages from Chickie&Roo

ANIMAL HOME PLAYDOUGH
Setting out a range of loose parts and African animal figures combined with a range of Little Munchkin's Playdough, enabled the children to create and explore the habitat of different animals and create their own homes for them.

ELEPHANT ALPHABET
This activity tray uses the elephant letters from the printable pack along with with some fun elephant toys. The children paired up the mummy and 'baby' elephants by matching the capital and lower case letters.

MEERKAT MATHS
On this tray I placed the numbers and maths symbols as well as the meerkat manipulatives. The children built mounds with the play dough and then either counted and matched the meerkats and numbers or created simple addition and subtraction sums to solve.

SENSORY TRAY
Here is a simple African river bed themed sensory tray we set out on our activity shelves, using dried beans, split peas, lentils, willow branches and herb sprigs alongside some Playmobil animals.

MINI WORLDS
Each day I set out a different animal flashcard along with a mini play world for the children to explore. These tiny trays with a card, animal figure and a selection of natural loose parts create a really inviting way for the children to learn to identify new types of animals.

Book Suggestions

Some of our favourite safari books:
- Africa is not a country
- Galimoto
- Baby Giraffe
- Beatrices Goat
- We're all Going on Safari
- Little Elephant Thunderfoot

extensions

Visit to a wildlife park, explore African cultures, countries and other habitats from across this very diverse continent.