Animal Homes colouring activity

Just as people live in many different types of homes, animals do to. 

We have created a sheet of 12 animals and 12 different animal homes. In this activity children will colour in the 24 pictures, use scissors to cut out each of the picture squares, and then try to match what animal belongs to what home. 

We have put in a few tricky pairings where children will have to stop and consider what is the best match. One example is the Ocean and these 3 animals:

  • Clownfish - Home is the Sea Anemone
  • Hermit Crab - Home is the Shell
  • Whale - Home is the Ocean 

Whilst all of these creatures can call the Ocean their home, children will have to use their skills of deduction to find the correct answer: 

  • A Whale cannot live in a Shell or a Sea Anemone, so its home must be the Ocean.
  • A Clownfish does not live in a Shell, so its home must be the Sea Anemone.
  • Leaving the Hermit Crab to call the Shell home.  (Which is the correct answer in this activity and how most people will associate the two. But the interesting fact is that there are a small number of hermit crabs that do live in Sea Anemone.)  


Click the link to download this colouring activity from Planet Designs Kids Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads on our website or on our Pinterest account.


You may notice the drawing of the spider is more simplistic than the other animals drawn and there is a reason for this. One of our team members is petrified of spiders…even drawings of them! Being scared of spiders is not uncommon so we thought this simplistic representation may be less confronting or scary for any children (or adults) who have this fear too.


Here are some idea’s on how to extend this colouring activity further :

  • Research what types of homes do people have? eg House, boat, apartment, caravan, yurt.
  • Make a collage of pictures of the different types of homes people have.
  • Research what other animals live in the homes pictured? eg A Den - is home to Fox, Bear, Skunk, Wolf etc. 
  • Research names of other animals homes both wild and domesticated animals eg. Burrow - Rabbit/Meerkat/Platypus, Cave - Bat/Cave Crayfish, Trees - Koala/Possum/Sloth/Monkey, Coop - Chicken, Stable - Horse, Sty - Pig etc.
  • Explore outdoors and see if you can spot any of the animals or their homes pictured.
  • Create animal homes as art - Make a Nest by weaving twigs together. Make a Drey with a cardboard tube as the tree trunk, cut a hole in its middle, glue leaves at the top of the tube as the tree canopy and around the hollow (for the drey).  See Pinterest for many other crafting ideas.


To download or print using the above links: 

* Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads (on our website) - click the “Planet Designs Kids Free Downloads” link and it will take you to the free downloads page on our website. Put in your email address and you’ll have free access to all of our free colouring activities. Click “Continue”, then on the page you want click “Download”, and it will then be saved in your downloads folder where you can print it.

* Pinterest - click the “Pinterest” link and it will take you to the Planet Designs Kids Pinterest account where you can find the above colouring activity, click the menu button at top of picture (3 dots … ), and select “Download Image”, it will then be saved in your downloads folder where you can print it.

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