Feed the Zoo Before the Song Ends

Each hoop is a zoo animal's home with its picture card, and children carry food (beanbags) from the storeroom moving like the animal they are feeding. The whole class tries to feed every animal before the song ends, practicing varied ways of moving and a shared challenge.

How to play

1. Put all the beanbags in a storeroom on one side of the yard and five hoops on the other side with a card each: lion, snake, kangaroo, penguin and elephant. Each hoop needs six beanbags (2 min).
2. The teacher shows how to reach each home: on all fours to the lion, crawling on the tummy to the snake, hopping to the kangaroo, tiny steps to the penguin and swinging a trunk to the elephant (2 min).
3. Practice round: each child takes a beanbag, picks an animal, moves like it and runs back for another (3 min).
4. The song plays: the whole class feeds the zoo; when a hoop has six beanbags, that animal is full and gets no more (3 min).
5. Empty the zoo by bringing the beanbags back as the same animals, trying to go faster than the first time (3 min).
6. Sit down and everyone makes the sound of the animal they fed the most; we celebrate a happy zoo (2 min).

Rules

• I carry one beanbag at a time.
• I move like the animal whose home I'm going to.
• If a home is full, I find a hungry one.
• The zoo is happy when we all feed it together.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the child carries several beanbags at once in a basket on the lap and acts out the animal with arms and voice.
• Autism: place a card showing the animal and its movement by each hoop, always in the same order.
• Visual impairment: put a large bell inside each hoop and shorten the path, with a buddy.

Learning goals

• Move in varied ways by imitating animals.
• Count and share out objects following an instruction.
• Cooperate to complete a whole-class challenge.

Equipment for a class of 25

• Beanbags: 30
• Hoops: 5
• Animal picture cards: 5
• Music

Teacher tip

Have extra beanbags so nobody stands around. Everyone tends to rush to their favorite animal, so the teacher calls out which homes are still hungry.

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