Have you read the book Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett? It’s one of my favorite classic books! The illustrations are funny (my 3 year old laughs through most of the silly scenarios in the book!) and the text is simple. For older children it’s also a great book to practice making inferences. For example, it says snake might lose it’s clothes, but it does not elaborate on why. The pictures do most of the explaining and we just love examining and talking about the fun illustrations 🙂 Another activity I like to pair with this book is to bring out some of our animal figurines and make play dough clothes to dress them up in! I mean, look at that pig’s face? Doesn’t he just look like he dreads the whole experience?!? But we have too much fun!
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Supplies:
This was a really simple activity to put together because we always have play dough on hand, and we have a great collection of animal figurines (besides blocks and play dough, these are on my top “need to have” preschool toys).
I just love the look on that pig’s face! As soon as my son got in the play dough, we started talking about types of clothes we could make for the animals, like a hat for a pig! I think the little blue beret he made the pig is pretty cute 😉 And working that play dough is great for strengthening muscles in the hand!
I kept the book close by so we could quickly refer to it for ideas. We didn’t have all the animals from the book to dress up (no porcupine or sheep), but we added a few of our own animals to make up for it.
We had a great time pretend playing with the animals, too! The sea lion was having a hard time seeing Mr. Pig because his hat was too large, and Mr. Pig was unhappy about the blanket on his back 😉
I couldn’t help but to try my hand at dressing up the animals! My horse is looking pretty stylish, don’t you think?
This activity helped strengthen hand muscles (playing with the play dough), encouraged imaginative play, promoted creativity, built vocabulary, and made for an excellent quality time together! It’s an activity we’ve done several times and each time we come up with different creations and have new discussions. Don’t forget to pin it so you can come back to it later! Thanks for visiting I I hope you’ll consider following along on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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2 thoughts on “Animals Should Not Wear Clothes Activity”
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Bah ha! Too cute!
Thanks, Julie! I think the book is hilarious!