This review is for Dear Zoo: Noisy Book, which I think is the best of all the many versions and formats. It begins: It's simple, repetitive, beautifully descriptive and, perhaps best of all, funny. It is a great read aloud and a great one to read to a child sitting on your lap,the two stylesnot always being the case. As a class, discuss the story, then list and recordanimals in the story and identify theadjective used to describe each animal. Eg. These Where Are The Puppy Picture Cards are a super fun way to help teach positional language. With cute illustrations, encourage your little pups to describe where the doggy is in each picture. Is he ‘behind’ the dog house? ‘In front’ of the grass? Zoos provide a sanctuary for animals who have been mistreated. There are specialists who work in zoos to help those poorly or injured.

Zoos are incredible as they give you the opportunity to see animals you may never do in your lifetime. Having a Lion within arm distance (albeit behind some strong glass!) is something really special. You can share some of these brilliant facts about zoos and the animals there.Fold each color paper in half, then in half again, then in half again! You should end up with 8 columns. We made this elephant suncatcher as an Elmer craft but by using grey colours instead of (lots!) of colours for Elmer it would work well as a Dear Zoo craft. Spend time talking together about the cover picture, what they notice, and commenting on what the story might be about and where it takes place. Read aloud We made this toilet roll dog craft for Valentines Day but it could be easily adapted by not using the hearts. Easy Peasy and Fun has a super cute monkey paper plate craft or you could make this handprint monkey from Fun Handprint Art

You can help your child to think of some adjectives to describe each animal. The elephant can be described as wrinkly, wise or enormous.Adjectives which relate to each animal, e.g.'They sent me an elephant, but he was too big', They sent me a snake, but he was too scary'. If you love reading zoo animal books with your kids then these are some more we think you might enjoy! First, decide on the pattern you’d like to make for your snake. We chose three colors, but you could choose however many you’d like! This is a great opportunity to practice making patterns. Painted Animal Hand Print– paint hands in the main colour of your zoo animal (you can use our photos as a guide, save the pin for later!) and press and print onto paper plates (for the snake, paint the body shape onto the plate first and then just apply paint to finger tips to make the snake’s pattern once dry)

For some of the zoo animal handprints you could use two colours – we did this for the monkey and the dog paws as shown above) Regardless. Is it a bit hypocritical of me to be endorsing this book, based on my ethical beliefs that animals are not toys to be swapped, sold on, imprisoned or treated as inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah. Am I delivering a dark, subconscious message of irresponsibility to my child when I read her this? Make this cute giraffe finger puppet from I Heart Crafty Things or this paper bag giraffe inspired by Greedy Steve

But my daughter really loves this book. And my husband told me to lighten up, get off my high horse and "it's only a kids' book. Don't worry about it." So maybe the lift up flaps are great. And how lovely it would be to have a zoo keep sending you animals on demand. Yeah, ok, it's a fab book. They could roar like a lion, ribbit like a frog and woof like a puppy. But what noise does a camel make? After reading the story with your class, you can use these Zoo Animals Pictures to prompt a discussion on what types of animals they are and what their key features are.

When I "read" it, I had a box marked "From the Zoo" (as if the kids could read it) and I would just say the same line over and over again: There are loads of fabulous Dear Zoo activities for kids in this post from You Clever Monkey including a lift the flap drawing prompt and animal weighing activity Zoos offer a large range of jobs to different specialists. Zookeepers are highly trained and skilled in what they do, and offer exceptional personalised care to animals. They will have to follow strict procedures when handling individual species. These fantastic Zoo Animal Pictures are excellent to use in your classroom to complement your lessons on the storybook 'Dear Zoo' by Rod Campbell. Our goal is to find toys that don’t place limitations on play, but inspire children to imagine, to create and to engage.

The bright animal drawingsprovide more informationto the reader and 'clues'.Each animal is presented in a different way (e.g.a crate, box, basket),and each child can see a glimpse of the animal to enable them to predict whichanimal it might be. I love this paper plate frog craft from Fireflies and Mud Pies or you could make this cupcake liner frog from from Kids Activities Blog