Owl Babies: Activities for Preschool Students

Written by: Tracey Bleakley • Edited by: Jacqueline Chinappi
Updated Oct 26, 2010 • Related Guides: Preschoolers

Preschoolers will love this story about three baby owls waiting for their mother to come home. It's a great addition to a unit about forest animals, nocturnal animals or as a stand alone book. Try some of these fun preschool Owl Babies activities when you share it with your class.

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell can be used to teach your students skills in many subjects.

For a fun science lesson about owls choose a non-fiction book about owls to read to your class like White Owl, Barn Owl by Nicola Davies, Owls by Adrienne Mason or The Barn Owls by Tony Johnston. After reading the new book make a list of facts about owls. Then have your students illustrate one thing that they learned about owls.

After talking about owls, teach your students about other nocturnal animals like bats, raccoons and tree frogs. Bring in pictures of different animals and sort them by whether or not they are nocturnal. This could easily be turned into a science center.

Talk about where owls live. Read the part in the book that describes the owls' home - a hole in the tree with leaves, twigs and feathers in it. Give each student a piece of brown construction paper and have them glue a black circle on it for the hole in the tree. Provide some small twigs and leaves and feathers for them to glue onto the bottom of the hole. You could also take them on a walk around the school to collect the twigs and leaves and then give each students a few feathers. Then give them a picture of an owl to color, cut out and glue in the owl home that they made.

Talk about feelings after reading Owl Babies. Stop at different points in the book and ask the students how they think the owls are feeling and how they know. For example they were probably feeling scared when they were waiting and they all moved to the same branch or they were happy when their mother came home. When you are finished have them draw a picture of a time when they felt happy.

Give each student a piece of card stock with three owl pictures on it. Have them color and cut out the owls and then glue each one to a craft stick. They can then use their owl puppets to act out the story or to tell new stories about the owl babies.

For a fun owl craft, look here for instructions on making a paper plate owl with your students.

Your students will have lots of fun learning about owls with these preschool Owl Babies activities!