Seeing an elephant at the zoo is like seeing a real life giant! Their sheer size can leave you in awe when you see them in person!

When you’re at the zoo, you may be able to see an elephant use its trunk to spray water or reach high up to the leaves of a tree.

Seeing an elephant sparks wonder, so encourage kids to learn more about these graceful creatures with a fun craft! This elephant paper cup craft brings one of our favorite zoo animals to life with some simple materials and a bit of creativity!

Paper cup crafts allow kids to explore their creative side by repurposing an everyday item. They promote using problem-solving skills as kids figure out how they can transform a simple cup into various animals or objects!

Elephant Kids Craft

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Supplies

• Gray paper cup
• Colored cardstock or construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Elephant template (enter your email in the form at the end of the post to get the template)

Directions

Download the elephant template, print, and cut out the pieces you need.

Start by gluing the pink inner ears to the outer ears.

Take the eyes and glue them beneath both of the eyebrows.

Glue the trunk in between and slightly overlapping the bottom of the eyes.

Position the legs near each other on one end of the cup and glue them in place.

Finish up by gluing the completed head to the top of the legs, on the paper cup.

Be sure to check out more fun zoo animal crafts for your kids while here, there are plenty more options for your child’s favorite animal at the zoo!

Zoo Theme For Preschool

Keep your little ones engaged and inspired to learn more about zoo animals with some of our interactive and hands-on crafts and activities.

From the trumpeting elephant to the preening peacock, we have lots of zoo themed project ideas to keep your kids learning and having fun at the same time! Keep reading below for ideas to add to your zoo themed unit for your preschooler.

Zoo Animal Books For Preschool

Reading books to your children can significantly contribute to their language development, cognitive skills, emotional understanding, and imaginative abilities. By exposing them to new words and sentence structures, books can help build their vocabulary and problem-solving skills!

Moreover, the emotional journey of a story helps them explore their feelings and develop empathy toward others.

The Fascinating Animal Book For Kids is a great book for curious kiddos! Find facts on almost any animal your child is learning about. This is a great resource to have in your home library collection.

The View At The Zoo is a silly book about all the animals at the zoo. When the people come to take a look at the animals, they see all sorts of sights! But, there’s a twist to this book that you have to read for yourself and laugh about!

Giraffes Can’t Dance is a sweet and fun book about Gerald the Giraffe. He can’t dance, but doesn’t stop trying! He finally finds his own rhythm when he meets an unlikely friend.

Zoo Theme Crafts

Crafting is a way for kids to go on an adventure and bring their imaginations to life. With just a few supplies and materials, they can transform ordinary objects into extraordinary creations!

This allows kids to express themselves, build confidence, and develop their fine motor skills. Get your kids crafting with one (or all!) of our fun animal crafts below.

Panda Headband Craft – Kids will love their new accessory that turns them into a playful panda! Their new panda headband will combine the worlds of fashion and imagination in an adorable way. With our free template and a few supplies, you’ll have a bamboo-loving panda in no time!

Koala Handprint Craft – Kids will use their handprints as a canvas to bring a cuddly koala to life. This cute keepsake craft is a great addition when learning about Australia, the letter K, or zoo animals! This craft has all the right “koalafications” for a fun and educational activity!

Paper Plate Tiger Craft – Kids will roar with delight when they turn a paper plate into an adorable tiger. They’ll love being able to break out the paints and use their artistic side to create this orange and black striped cat!

Peacock Handprint Craft – Strut your stuff with this fun peacock craft! Kids will make a beautiful train of tail feathers with their cute handprints! Use our template and step-by-step instructions to make this adorable craft even easier.

Zoo Activities For Children

Bring the zoo home with these zoo animal worksheets! Kids will love discovering all kinds of animals while they work on topics like handwriting, beginner math, memory, patterns, and much more!

These engaging worksheets are filled with games and puzzles along with worksheets to work on counting, matching, and letters. Kids will have a blast while developing essential skills like fine motor control and letter recognition, so get ready for some fun at the zoo!

Kids will love to bring so many different animals to life with our pre k color by numbers! These worksheets are designed for young learners to practice number recognition and color identification while coloring cool pictures of animals from an alligator to a sloth!

They’ll use the key at the bottom of the page to know which color to fill in each numbered space.

Get your kids ready to have some penguin themed fun learning to use scissors with our penguin cutting activity! This hands-on activity is a great way for kids to enhance their fine motor skills and scissor control.

With each printable, kids will cut along the dotted lines to reach the penguin at the end, match the penguins, and count how many are in each box.

Your little cubs will roar into learning with these L is for Lion worksheets! These adorable lion themed activities will make learning an exciting adventure for your kiddos. They’re a great way for your kids to learn all about the letter L with handwriting practice and letter recognition activities!

Share With Us

Did you make this craft with your kids or students? We’d love to feature them on our social media!

For a chance to have your child’s craft featured, simply snap a picture of the completed project and post it to our Facebook page, email it to us directly by clicking here, or use #simpleeverydaymom on your social media!

More Fun Ideas For Kids

Elephant Paper Cup Craft Template