Transitional Activities

Rachel Ison

Transitional Activities

1.  Habitat sounds

Make a tape of sounds from the environment that the animal lives in while the students travel to the next station. For example, the sounds of jungle for monkeys while the students travel to next station.

2.  Animal Part Safari

Students will have to find separate parts of animals hidden around the room. Instruct the students to discover the parts of the animal and assemble in correct order to be line leader. The role of line leader is to act like the animal they assembled and the rest of the students mimic.

3.  Zoo Hangman

Students will try to spell a word associated with the animal taught that day that will link to the next subject. For example, a giraffe has a black tongue, so the students try to guess the spelling of ‘black tongue.’

4.  Animal Mambo line

Students will act like the animal they had learned and dance like they are doing the mambo in a line. Have mambo music with animal sounds inserted would be a good background.

5.  Animal Print hop scotch

Students play hop scotch jumping from one station to the next by jumping on the animal print or color of the animal they have learned about like jumping only on the zebra print circles for zebra.

6.  Animal Voices and parts

Students act out like the animals to travel or migrate to the next station by creating the sounds of the animals or having the parts of the animal. For example, students use arm to be the trunk of an elephant.

7.  Zebras, Elephants, Lions, and monkeys

With the seated children scattered throughout the room, whisper the name of one of the animals in each player's ear. Once each child has been assigned an animal, ask the children to get on their hands and knees and close their eyes. When you give the signal tostart, they begin moving about the room with their eyes still closed making the sound of their animal and trying to find the other animals like them. When all the animal groups have found one another, ask the children to count the number of "animals" in their group.

8.  Zoo Animal Question Ball

Students sit in a circle and the teacher asks a question about the animal while the students can only say one term that applies to that question about the zoo animal. For example, what are the names given to giraffe families? The students toss the ball while saying the family names such as bull, cow, and calf.

9.  Zoo Track Hunters

Students are given a color of their tracks and have the different colored tracks leading to stations. Tracks need to be the tracks of the animal being taught.

10.  Animal Limbo

Students make a line and play limbo while acting like the zoo animal for that day.