What happens outside while we’re tucked into bed? A nocturnal animals theme is such a fun way to spark curiosity in our little learners! Fall is a wonderful time to explore animals that are active at night and bring that curiosity into our learning through books, conversations, and hands-on play.
Our Nocturnal Animals Preschool Activities and Lesson Plans help you bring this theme into your homeschool or classroom with a week of learning fun! With 15 hands-on activities, little ones can practice counting, colors, shapes, letters, beginning sounds, and fine motor skills—all with a nocturnal animals theme. Whether you’re planning preschool centers or learning together around the kitchen table, there are plenty of playful ways to practice. Let’s take a peek at what’s included!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
Fall Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. So many of the activities in our Nocturnal Animals Preschool pack incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our Fall sensory bin is always a hit—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the dry oats we use in ours. Something about the oats really makes all the Fall colors in our Nocturnal Animals theme POP and gives children a very unique texture to experience. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra Fall themed items like plastic apples and pumpkins, faux leaves, colorful pompoms, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our preschool Fall pack! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Nocturnal Animals Preschool theme, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
Nocturnal Animals Preschool Theme Overview
This Nocturnal Animals Preschool theme is sure to give your little learners TONS of fun practice! Children will have 15 center-style activities to choose from – 5 Math, 5 Literacy and 5 Fine Motor centers. In addition, I’ve included book recommendations for 5 pumpkin theme picture books and links to their read aloud videos on YouTube!
To use these printables, you can follow the PRE-MADE lesson plans for a week full of fun! Each of the 5 pre-planned days your students will have 1 read aloud, 1 Math activity, 1 Literacy activity, and 1 Fine Motor activity to work on. This is a great pace for little learners! But if you’d like to spread the activities out or rearrange them according your own child’s needs, simply print our provided Build-Your-Own Plans page and make your own plans!
PS See how we use this theme in our Preschool scope and sequence by grabbing our FREE Preschool Curriculum Map below!
Math Activities
This set of printables has 5 fun Nocturnal Animals Preschool theme activities for practicing early Math skills. Children will practice number formation, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes. Our Preschool activities always include the use of small manipulatives for added fine motor skills practice!
One of my favorite nocturnal animals theme Math activities is the activity shown above! To use, children choose items from the sensory bin to cover the amount shown on the cards and either trace the numbers or build them with play dough or manipulatives.
If you enjoy this activity, you’re in luck because all of our 45+ themes in our Preschool Curriculum begin with this type of activity as the first Math center for the week. I kept this one Math activity consistent across all of the themes because the skills it practices are just TOO important and the cards are just so versatile! They serve as a great way for children to count, practice one-to-one correspondence, form numbers, compare amounts, AND get a good visual of number order when arranging the cards!
Literacy Activities
In addition to the Math centers, this set includes 5 early Nocturnal Animals Preschool Literacy activities! Children will practice skills like letter identification, letter formation, beginning sounds, and handwriting practice with nocturnal animals vocabulary words!
One of my favorite Literacy activities from our nocturnal animals theme is the one shown above. To use, children identify the nocturnal critter on the left side of the clip card and the beginning sound for that word. Then use clothespins to clip the correct letter on the right side of the card.
Fine Motor Activities
When working with little learners, strengthening fine motor skills is a must! Our 5 Nocturnal Animals theme fine motor activities will have your children working hard and having TONS of fun! They will practice matching using clothespins, mold using play dough, trace using manipulatives, and so much more!
We just love this activity from our fine motor skills section! To use, children choose nocturnal animal cards from their sensory bin. Then they look on the matching mat for a shadow that matches the critter, and use the picture to cover the shadow! Children continue until all of the shadows have been covered!
And… I lesson planned FOR YOU!
This set of activities (and all of the other 45+ sets in our FULL Preschool Curriculum) include a full week of print and go visual lesson plans! It shows you exactly which books and printables to use each day for a 5-day school week, making lesson planning an absolute breeze!
Want to build your own? Or maybe your kiddos are ready for some of the activities but not all of them? That’s great! Use the included Build Your Own lesson plans page! These thematic centers were designed with growing learners ages 2.5 to 5 years old in mind, so this lesson planning page allows you to choose which activities your child is ready for right now!
Ready to learn with your toddlers or Preschoolers ALL MONTH LONG?! You can save TONS when you grab this set of centers in our October Preschool Curriculum! The bundle includes 5 engaging later Fall themes (like Halloween, spiders, and more!), complete with a week of lesson plans for each! You’ll also get 25 NO PREP Halloween themed fine motor skills worksheets and crafts, and 40+ NO PREP Math and Literacy worksheets for extended practice!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Nocturnal Animals Theme Preschool activities! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
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