If your child is an animal lover like my 7 year old daughter, then keep reading for her favourite books about animals. These 5 great educational animal books for kids will help develop a love of animals in your kids.
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I don’t know how, because my husband and I don’t particularly love animals, but our 7 year old daughter has an obsession with animals.
My daughter loves learning about facts about different animals and has a wonderful memory in recalling specific facts about animals, probably because she loves learning about them so much!
Over the past year, her love for learning about animals has deepened and one of her favourite pastimes is watching videos on YouTube about animal facts.
Because we homeschool our children, we have made an effort to dedicate a significant portion of learning time to their interests. For Science this year, our daughter has been learning about different animals.
It helps when there are great educational animal books out there. I will soon share our favourites with you.
What I will cover in this post
- Some educational activities/places to visit for an animal-loving child
- 5 great educational animal books for kids
Some Great Educational Activities/Places to Visit for an Animal-Loving Child
We live in Sydney, Australia, so I can only speak about places local to us, but it may spark an idea of somewhere similar to go to if you live elsewhere.
- A wildlife park: we have visited two wildlife parks this year: Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park and the Australian Wildlife Sanctuary. The wonderful thing about visiting wildlife parks is that your children get to see native animals up close and personal. My kids got to hop with the Kangaroos and get close to Emus (even though it scared the heck out of me!).
- A local zoo: we had a yearly pass to our local zoo last year and although we only went about three times, my kids could not wait to go back each time. A zoo gives you the opportunity to introduce your children to animals of different countries, which makes for a great Geography lesson too!
- A fossil museum: this makes for a wonderful History and Science excursion, as children learn about fossils from extinct animals and how they are found thousands/tens of thousands of years later.
- A farm: going to a farm is a wonderful experience for children all ages. This is because you often get to feed and pet the animals. We have been to our local farm a couple of times and the kids love to milk the cows, feed the lambs and goats and pet the horses. It’s usually different to a zoo, where you are just observing the animals rather than touching and feeding them.
- An aquarium: this is a great place to visit if your child especially loves sea animals! Aquariums are awesome experiences because children only ever get to see these kinds of animals on TV shows and in movies. It’s great if they have personalised experiences like getting to touch and hold penguins or swim with a dolphin.
5 Great Educational Animal Books for Kids
These books are for children of all ages, but for independent reading, ideal for children ages 5 to 10.
- Lonely Planet Kids Animal Atlas : Lonely Planet Kids has a range of different animal books, so make sure to check out their collection. We just have the Animal Atlas at home and it has been such a treat for my daughters. It explores animals of different continents, has a range of interesting facts, fold-out maps and is vibrant and colourful to read.
- The Big Book of Bugs: this is also one book of a collection. We love the illustrations and the story it takes you on about each bug. I learnt so many facts I would not have known about bugs myself!
- The Big Book of Beasts: this book is similar to The Big Book of Bugs, except it explores wild beasts. The illustrations are incredible and the facts are so intricate and specific. My daughter loved learning about the Binturongs and the Ice Age Beasts.
- Australia by Pete Cromer: This book is specific to Australian native animals. The illustrations are so unique and colourful. We also love how each page shows where the animal in focus is found across Australia.
- Imagine by Alison Lester: This book is more of a visual book and less of an educational fact book. My kids have read this book from when they were toddlers. What we love about it is that it shows all different kinds of animals that live in the Safari or in a rainforest or in the Australian bush. It lists all the names of the animals on the margins of the pages and we like to make a game of it by pointing out which animals we can name first.
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