Earlier this week I tried a new matching activity with G using post-it notes and some rough drawings of animals that I quickly sketched onto a large piece of paper while he ate breakfast.
I saw an Instagram friend do this with letters of the alphabet which would be great for older kids but probably too advanced for G who just turned two. He’s obsessed with animals so I knew this would make the perfect variation for this activity.
He was SO into it and kept asking me to draw more kitty cats for him to match up. Ha! I was truly shocked he was able to tell what each of the animals were from my drawings. Kids amaze me.
I knew I wanted to be able to do this activity with him again and again but didn’t want to have to draw them every time. I remembered when I was teaching that there was a way to print on to post-it notes! So I got to work on putting together some animal post-it note prints for a fun toddler matching activity.
Each page has 6 different pictures of the same animal. I included real photos, an animated photo, and a drawing version of each animal because I wanted the child to see many different variations of the same animal just as they would in books in real life.
The animals included in this PDF are:
lion
giraffe
bear
zebra
elephant
tiger
How to set up the Wild Animal Post-it Note Matching Activity:
- Get your the FREE animal post-it note PDF here.
- Print the first page of blank post-it note templates.
- Stick your 3×3 post-it notes into the squares
- Figure out which way your printer prints and set your post-it not paper in the tray accordingly. A lot of times you have to put the paper in upside down.
- Print each animal page onto the stick notes.
- Lay out the post-it notes on to a table or floor with a large photo of the animal for your child to match them too.
