Animal Train

Create a train for your favorite paper animals. This is a great animal craft to make before or after a visit to the zoo. It can also be used as a fun and exciting way of introducing animal and habitat facts.

See Earth-friendly tips for this craft Earth-friendly tips for this craft

Materials Needed

Printable paper
Construction paper
Crayons or colored pencils
Glue stick
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Animal magazine cut-outs (optional)

Safety Guidelines

Always let your child use child-safe scissors.
Watch out for this sign . It means you need an adult's help for the particular step.

Recommended Books

Amazon.com Widgets

Steps

	1.	Draw your favorite animals or look for them in old magazines. We also have animal templates that you can print out: Jungle or Rainforest Animals Polar Animals Safari Animals
	2.	Color and cut out the animals. Skip the coloring step if you chose the colored animal templates or magazine cut-outs.
	3.	The train cars will basically be rectangular pouches that will allow you to slip in the animals inside. Use the largest animal to estimate the size of a train car. The car's height should at least reach above the animal's legs and the width should allow the animal to slip in and out of the car.
	4.	Cut out the measured piece.
	5.	Make more rectangular train cars to accommodate all your animals. You can assign 1 or 2 animals per car but take note to leave a little bit of room on one of the cars for the train engine. In this train, the engine is in the red car and the little penguin is driving.
	6.	Cut out basic shapes from construction paper to make the parts of the train engine: 2 rectangles, 1 square, 1 triangle, and 2 circles.
	7.	Unfold the train engine. Glue on the parts except the pair of circles.
	8.	Fold up the train engine along the crease. Glue the pair of circles along the bottom edge to create wheels.
	9.	Cut out more circles and glue them in pairs at the bottom edge of the rest of the train cars.
	10.	Cut out a ½ to ¾-inch wide strip of construction paper long enough to connect all your train cars.
	11.	Unfold the train engine again. Glue one end of the long strip just above the crease and close to the car's rear edge.
	12.	Open up the next car and glue it along the strip, leaving about a half-inch distance from the first car.
	13.	Glue the rest of the cars along the strip, making sure to position the strip above the crease.
	14.	Apply glue along the sides of each train car and fold up the car along the crease. Press on the glued edges.
	15.	Cut the excess length of paper strip at the end of the last car.
	16.	Your train looks really good as it is but you can further decorate it if you like. You can glue on small shapes or stickers, draw designs on it, or punch out shapes like I did.
	17.	Finally, slip in your animals inside the train cars. The great thing about having "pouched" or "slotted" cars is that most kids love to move the animals from one car to the next. You can also re-use the train or the animals for your future crafts and learning activities.
		18. Tape the train against the wall or create a background picture for it.

More Ideas

Make your train a vehicle for an in-depth learning about animals. Assign one animal per car and let kids draw, cut out, or write things they learn about the animal. Slip these inside the animal's train car. You can install additional cars as kids learn about more animals. Here are some useful links to animal learning for kids:

Learn about the various animal habitats by taking your animals for a train adventure. Make a jungle, safari, or other habitat background for the train. Unload the animals from the train and find out which of them live on trees, water, or behind tall grasses.

Earth Friendly Tips

You can reuse both the train and the animal cut-outs for other crafts such as these:

Crafts