Monkeys are always a blast to watch at the zoo with their playful nature and mischievous antics. Kids adore their energetic and curious personalities, making them a favorite stop on a zoo trip.

If you’re looking for an engaging craft to captivate your child’s love and excitement of this delightful zoo animal, you’ll love this monkey paper cup craft. 

Check out more paper cup crafts to see how many amazing things kids can create!

Cute Monkey Craft

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This craft is a great opportunity for kids to express their creativity and hone their fine motor skills.

With just a paper cup, a few craft supplies, and a dash of imagination, kids can make this ordinary object into an adorable monkey friend. Use our free template to make this craft even easier, so you spend less time planning and more time creating!

Supplies

• Paper cups
• Colored cardstock or construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Monkey template (enter your email in the form at the end of the post to get the template)

Directions

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

Start by gluing the face to the middle of the head.

Place the inner ears in the middle of the outer ears and glue them in place.

Next, glue the eyes below both of the eyebrows.

Position the paper cup with the rim facing down and glue the belly to the bottom (rim part) of the cup.

Take the tail, fold the straight end, place glue or a glue dot on the folded part, and glue it to the side and back of the cup.

Finish up by gluing the head to the top of the monkey’s body.

Check out all of our fun zoo animal crafts to make while you’re here.

Zoo Animal Ideas For Kids

If you’re searching for some exciting ways to engage your little ones in a world of creativity and fun, we have some ideas for you!

Below, you’ll find a collection of zoo animal themed craft and activity ideas that will transport your kiddos to the wild wonders of the animal kingdom.

Get ready to embark on a wild adventure as your kids explore some of our favorite zoo animal projects.

Zoo Books Recommendations

By sharing stories and ideas with your child, you can help them strengthen their communication skills, expand their vocabulary, and develop their imagination. Reading books can help your children develop analytical and critical thinking skills, which will serve them well in all aspects of life.

The time you spend reading with your kids can be a fun and rewarding experience, and will ultimately help shape their future successes.

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.

Cute Zoo Animal Crafts

Crafting provides children with lots of joy and benefits, too. As kids engage in hands-on activities, they’re able to foster self-expression and creativity. Crafting encourages problem-solving skills, as they figure out how to bring their ideas to life.

Lion Name Craft – Kids learning to spell their name is a “mane” event with this cute lion craft! Kids will personalize this craft with their name which will help reinforce letter recognition. Grab our template to craft a majestic king!

Zebra Paper Bag Puppet –  A humble paper bag will become a zebra with this fun craft! Kids will enjoy putting on its iconic stripes and its mohawk mane. Creating a zebra puppet will bring your kid’s storytelling and playtime to life in a fun way!

Elephant Paper Bag Puppet – Kids will be able to make their own giant come to life to stomp, trumpet, and explore new lands when they play with their new elephant puppet. With just a paper bag and a few supplies, kids will be ready to play in no time.

Paper Plate Giraffe Craft – Get kids ready to showcase their artistic skills with this fun project! Break out the paints so your little artists can transform a paper plate into a tall, elegant animal with the help of our free template.

Zoo Theme Preschool Activities

Get your little cubs ready to practice using their scissors with these polar bear cutting activity pages. They’ll get the hang of using scissors as well as gain hand-eye coordination, hand strength, and dexterity.

This set includes 4 pages that will have kids cutting paths to, matching, and counting polar bears. See what the adorable polar bear gets up to in this free printable!

We’ll bring the zoo to you 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!

This set of 24 pages will keep them engaged and excited to learn about zoo animals while strengthening important skills.

Keep kids engaged and learning with these bat worksheets. These pages are great for helping kids develop fine motor skills, handwriting, scissor skills, and more.

They include label a bat, B letter maze, and B handwriting worksheets. These are great to do either at home or in the classroom, so grab the free worksheets for some fun learning.

These Dear Zoo printable activities pair wonderfully with the popular preschool book about zoo animals. They are great for preschoolers to practice beginning math skills, handwriting, matching, tracing, and more.

They’ll love the coloring pages and can color in the animals as they appear in the story. So be sure to include a reading of the beloved book following a child’s adventure of finding the perfect pet.

Fun Zoo Ideas

• Jungle Animal Counters
• Zoo Playdough Kit
• Zoo Temporary Tattoos

Share With Us

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

For a chance to have your child’s project 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!

Monkey Paper Cup Craft For Kids Template