Zoo Commissary Dramatic Play

Let's have a real teddy bear picnic! Gather your stuffed animals and make them a meal, just like the Zoo keepers in the commissary. Use the downloadable template to create a Zoo Commissary Cookbook, with simple actions to engage even our youngest friends. Watch Pinky try it out at the National Zoo!

Categories

Age Group: Toddler, Preschool
Animal Area: All
ELOF Domain: Approaches to Learning, Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development
Resource Format: PDF
Language: English
Smithsonian Museum: National Zoo
Topic: Food, Animals
A teacher helps a pink jackalope puppet use a toy knife to chop a toy apple to feed to a stuffed sloth bear

Part of the Following Programs

A pink jackalope puppet stands next to a man playing the guitar. On their left is a red ruffed lemur and on their right is a California sea lion.

Fancy Food

What do animals eat? What do humans eat? Are animal diets and human diets similar, different, or both?
Content Unit :
Food
Featured Creature :
Red ruffed lemur, California sea lion
Smithsonian Partners :
National Museum of African American History and Culture; National Museum of American History; National Museum of Asian Art; National Museum of Natural History
ELOF Standards :
IT-C 1; IT-C 3, IT-PMP 4; IT-PMP 11; P-SCI 2; P-PMP 1; P-PMP 5
A cartoon character of a man holding a guitar and a pink jackalope stand next to an image of a black gorilla and a cream-colored tamandua.

Food with Friends

Explore the foods that people and animals eat! Discover how our meals can be similar and different, and how sharing food can bring us together.

Content Unit :

Food

Featured Creature :

Western lowland gorilla + Southern tamandua