Kenya crafts: Safari Sheet

In preparation for her field trip to the zoo, The Whirl Girl made a Safari sheet - a list of Kenyan animals that she would see at the zoo. Her job was to cut out the pictures of the animals and paste them on the sheet so that she would know what she to search for since she can't read. Then, she would add a sticker next to each animal that we found as we walked around the zoo.

I did a little research before hand to see what animals we would be seeing (and if they lived in Kenya) and I tried to include some familiar (lions, zebras, giraffes) and less familiar (warthogs, mongooses, and baboons).

Supplies:

• safety scissors
• glue stick
• one piece of card stock (optional)
• stickers (if you're going to use it at the zoo)
  
• sheets printed with names of animals (I did this in Word using the chart tool and then printed on color paper)
• print-outs of animal pictures corresponding to those on the sheet (I found these using a Google images search, and many from National Geographic Animals) - and I printed out two copies so that The Whirl Girl could cut one for fun and I could cut one for her to paste on the sheets since her scissor skills aren't quite stellar yet
  

Step One: Cut out the photos. For The Whirl Girl, this meant a little cutting...

...and a little ripping to make...

...this pile of "cut-outs." (I handed over the cut-outs I had done for step two.)

Step Two: Glue the photo next to its name on the Safari Sheet. The Whirl Girl searched through the pile of photos and found each one...

...and then glued it on.

Two sheets full of Kenyan animals!

We glued them to a sheet of cardstock so that it would be easy for The Whirl Girl to carry around the zoo.

I also printed out a map of the zoo that I found online so she could try to find the animals on it and circle them. It was good practice and it got her excited about the upcoming field trip.

The morning we left, she grabbed her Safari Sheet without being asked. She was really excited about it during the first half of the day and insisted on doing the stickers herself. By the second half, her enthusiasm waned a bit and she was happy to pass off the task to one of her parents. But all in all, it was a hit and brought a fun new dimension to our zoo visit.

checking out the baboons...

...and putting a sticker!