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Animal Picture Books for Preschoolers: A Perfect Gift for Any Occasion



My Little Pond by Katrin Wiehle introduces children to the animals that live in and around the pond. The book is printed on 100% recycled paper. Other books in the series cover the forest, garden, and ocean.


Making Tracks Park by Cocoretto explores the tracks that animals make in a park setting. The book includes die-cuts and lift-the-flaps and is such a fun way to explore an environment. There are several other books in the series from Making Tracks City to Making Tracks Desert.




animal picture books for preschoolers



The enthusiastic animal lover will enjoy this set of 24 baby animal board books with a carrying case! Each book is just a few pages long but features a different animal. The illustrations are bright and fun and the small books are perfect for small toddler hands.


Are you looking for the best farm theme books to read in your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten classroom? Preschoolers have long been fascinated with learning about the farm and farm animals. There are so many important topics we can teach through a farm theme, such as animals, sequencing, stories, and even science!


Of course, having an animal-crazy kid means we read our fair share of picture books about endangered species. Books allow us to learn about and appreciate these animals. They also offer hope and ideas on how to help with conservation efforts. Here are some of our favorites.


Geography plays a significant role in this picture book about endangered animals. It highlights 15 species from six continents, offering exciting facts and conservation ideas. Children will pore over the vibrant illustrations and informative text.


This educational picture book focuses on endangered animals in North America. From overhunting to habitat loss, many factors have contributed to the threat against wildlife. Young readers will love learning about the colorful and incredible animals that need our help.


Books for children are a treasure trove of knowledge and fun, especially those that have pictures and colours! Kids enjoy illustrated stories about nature, and books about animals are fun and informative for them. If parents read out these books with animated voices and actions, it is even more delightful!


Young kids, like toddlers, may not be able to read on their own, but they surely enjoy the experience of looking at the pages as you narrate interesting stories. Here are some animal books for babies and toddlers:


Preschoolers are a lot of little learners who are always ready to find something interesting and amusing. If you are looking for interesting animal books for kindergarteners, here are some great reads:


This is one of the most adorable farm animal books for kids, and it will get your kiddo thrilled and excited, as it features a high-spirited animal crew! This lively, rhythmic, sing-along book features some wacky characters that include fiddle-playing cows and twirling pigs! This fun book will get kids as well as adults on their toes!


One of the most captivating Christmas or winter animal books, this story is a magical tale of friendship between a lost reindeer and a little girl, who embark on many adventures together. This classic story of friendship is a book that every kid should read!


Another important feature of picture books that can potentially impact children's learning has to do with the nature of the relation between the depiction and the referent, that is whether the depictions in picture books portray real entities in a realistic or fantastical manner. Many picture books for infants and young children depict reality in a distorted way. Human consciousness, knowledge, abilities, purpose, and intentions are often attributed to animal characters (e.g., seals solve mysteries, cats build houses and mice drive cars) and even to inanimate objects (e.g., lamps have faces and dance the tango, trains strive against all odds to achieve impossible goals). Fantasy elements are often employed even in books designed to convey serious information about the real world, including books with a focus on scientific knowledge. One question is whether the use of anthropomorphic elements in books might be counterproductive for learning (Ganea et al., 2011). Would the use of anthropomorphism to describe animals in picture books affect children's conceptual knowledge of real animals? In other words, does seeing animals talk and engage in human-like activities in children's picture books affect children's understanding of the biological and psychological properties of real non-human animals?


What explains these cultural and developmental differences regarding children's anthropocentric view of non-human animals? One possibility is that children growing up in different cultural settings (e.g., rural vs. urban) have different opportunities for informal learning about animals. In urban settings, children's direct exposure to animals is often limited and the books and media for young children depict animals in an anthropomorphic way (Inagaki, 1990; Rosengren et al., 1991). Also, with increased exposure with age to media that anthropomorphizes animals, children's view of animals may become more human-centered. Presenting animals to children in ways that are similar to how humans act and behave is likely to be counter-productive for learning scientifically accurate information about the biological world and to influence children's view of the biological world (Ganea et al., 2011).


E2 then proceeded to ask the child six yes/no questions about the animal. All test questions can be found in Supplementary Materials. The questions included two factual questions about information that had been presented in the books used in both conditions, and two anthropomorphic questions that had been presented as things the animals did in the Anthropomorphic Language condition (e.g., talk, have friends). Of the six anthropomorphic questions across the three books, two focused on physical behaviors, two asked about human emotions, and two concerned social understanding. Two factual control questions, which were not taught in the books, were also included, to ensure that children's answers to the factual questions were gained from the book, and that they were not simply using their own background knowledge about animals.


First, we asked whether the type of language used in the book (anthropomorphic vs. factual) affected children's learning of novel facts about the target animals. To answer this question we conducted a 3 (age) 2 (condition) 2 (question type) mixed-effects ANOVA, with age (3, 4, 5) and condition (No Anthropomorphism, Anthropomorphic Language) as between-subjects factors and question type (factual, control) as a within-subjects factor. This analysis revealed a significant effect of question type, F(1, 64) = 104.68, p


To summarize, the results of Study 1 indicate that preschoolers can learn simple facts about animals from books, whether the information is presented to them in a context that uses realistic or anthropomorphic language to describe the animals. This ability is more robust in 4- and 5-year-olds than in 3-year-olds. This finding is consistent with the results of Ganea et al. (2011) regarding the learning of simple biological information (e.g., color camouflage) from picture books that varied the type of language (realistic vs. intentional) used.


To address the first goal, children were exposed to books that had unrealistic images of novel animals, and the language used to describe them was either factual or anthropomorphic. Thus, children were assigned to one of two book conditions: Anthropomorphic Pictures (anthropomorphic images and factual language) or Full Anthropomorphism (anthropomorphic images and anthropomorphic language). In this study, parents were also asked to complete a questionnaire that asked about the average amount of time they spent reading books with their children each week, and the types of books their children enjoyed reading.


First, we analyzed children's performance on the factual vs. control questions as a function of book condition. A 2 (age) 2 (condition) 2 (question type) mixed-effects ANOVA, with age (3, 5) and condition (Anthropomorphic Pictures, Full Anthropomorphism) as between-subjects factors, and question type (factual, control) as a within-subjects factor, indicated a significant effect of question type, F(1, 50) = 61.99, p 2ff7e9595c


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