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Free Printable Animals Flashcards
Our animals flashcards are perfect to support your child develop their knowledge and understanding of animals and where they live.
These cards can be used from a young age to encourage children to recognise animals and their noises all the way through to older children to support spelling and the development of literacy.
What's Included In Our Animals Flashcards
Our Animal Flashcards are free to download and print at home. Each A4 page contains 4 cards which are all equal size. You can print as many copies as you require. You could even laminate several copies and turn it into a fun game which can be used again and again.
The printable sheets are separated into three categories, under the sea, at the zoo, and on the farmyard. Each category has 12 animals for you to explore with your children. Each animal is represented by a cute cartoon image along with the species name.
Due to their handy size, the flashcards are great for use in the house, in school or when you are out and about.
Sea Animals Flashcards
Our Sea Animals Flashcards contain 12 creatures you would find living under the ocean. These are great for children to understand it’s not just ‘fish’ under the sea. These flashcards would be ideal to use before a holiday, a visit to the seaside or the aquarium.
Zoo Animals Flashcards
Our Zoo Animals Flashcards contain 12 animals that you would expect to see at the zoo. Each flashcard names an animal along with a cartoon version of the animal. These flashcards would be ideal to use before, during or after a visit to the zoo or even while watching a wildlife programme on the telly.
Farm Animals Flash Cards
Our printable farm animals flashcards, also contain 12 animals. The farm animal flashcards are great for developing children’s knowledge on what noises different animals make. This is a great starting point for introduction to animals they may see regularly around your local area but not in the household. Children love to make noises like farm animals and it’s a fun activity that can be played anywhere.
How To Use Flashcards
There are numerous different ways that flashcards can be used to support your child grow and develop their knowledge as well as having fun. Flashcards maximise benefits of repetition learning and help develop children’s memories. Our flashcards can be used as a full set or mini sets based on the habitat. Here are some of the ways that we would suggest for you to use your flashcards.
Animal sounds
Show the picture to the child and ask what noise does the animal make? Name the animal when speaking to the child or ask them to name it if it is one, they are familiar with. Noises are a great way to introduce your child to different animals. The flashcards can also support learning noises through song such as Old McDonalds Farm nursery rhyme.
Play Animal Snap
print at least 2 copies of the flashcards and cut them up into individual cards (you could laminate if you want to use them again and again). Divide the cards equally between the players. Each person takes it in turns to place a card. If their card matches the card before the player needs to shout an agreed phrase, usually snap, to win the round. Rather than shouting snap each time a pair is made the person must shout out the name of the animal. This helps children identify the names of animals an associate them with the appropriate image.
Spelling
Show the child a flashcard with the word visible. Ask the child to read the letters of the animal and spell it aloud. Once they have been able to do this, cover the word and just show the picture. Children then need to remember the word and spell it aloud. It would be beneficial to start with 3 letter animals such as pig or hen then move onto harder animals such as elephant or seahorse.
Play Animal Snap
Reading
cover the image and ask the child to read the word. Encourage the child to sound out the different letters and sounds in the world if they are struggling to identify what it says. The child can then look at the image to see if they were right and able to read what it says. Again, start with the three letter animals then work your way up to the longer ones. We would suggest doing a maximum of 10 at a time, to begin with, to ensure the child remains engaged. As the child becomes more comfortable with reading you can increase the number of flashcards you go through.
Identification
show the child the flashcard and they must identify the animal and say where they live. You could ask your child a range of different questions such as how many legs does the animal have or what colour is the animal? Simple questions encourage the child to look at the image in greater detail and begin to develop their knowledge on the different animals.
Imagination
our flashcards can be used to develop imagination and storytelling. Allow children to pick 3 animals, one from each habitat and ask them to create a story on how the three animals know each other and what they would say to each other. You can then develop their idea further by asking questions and encouraging them to think about personality traits each character may have. Children have amazing imaginations and it a great to encourage them to use them from the youngest age possible. Stories do not have to be written down they can be verbal or even pictures.
Conclusion
The possibilities with our Animal Flashcards are endless. We have suggested a range of activities you could use but there are loads more different tasks you could do. We would love to see how you have used them on our social media channels. We have a range of flashcards available for download such as 195 Flags and the weather, these can either be used individually or combined with other free printable packs to enhance the child’s knowledge. You could even ask what is the weather like in the lion’s native home? This would incorporate the flags, the weather, and animals at the zoo – it just depends how adventurous you are feeling.