Desert Theme Activities for Preschoolers and Primary Students
Deserts are fascinating for kids. The unique animals and the landscapes that seem like they’re from another world are sure to grab their attention. My kids are drawn to the idea of exploring a desert, so I put together this desert unit theme full of activities for preschoolers and primary students (and toddlers as well with a little adapting!). In it you’ll find a holistic range of low prep, hands-on activities to help build those foundational academic skills while also exploring the world of the desert!
(And if you want a downloadable choice board for the activities and a bundle of the resources I created for my own daughters without reading through everything here, those are available under “Downloadable Resources”!)
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Anchor Text
I like to have at least one solid anchor text for every unit theme. For this unit, we used National Geographic’s In the Desert. It’s to the point for young readers and learners, covers the basics of a desert, introduces cool desert animals, and has highly engaging photographs.
It’s availble on Amazon here.
Desert Language Activities
Desert Animal Language Cards
I love including a set of Montessori-style language cards in the units I make for my children. They have so many different uses for different ages, from simple matching for my toddlers, to identifying starting and ending sounds with my preschooler, to sounding out words with my primary aged kiddo.
I created these desert animal language cards to go along with the Safari LTD Toob of Desert Animals. They’re available here on my Teachers Pay Teachers site. Simply download, print, and use them for the stage that your child is in. (And because I always use ours year after year, I always laminate mine so that they hold up!)
Desert Themed Vocabulary Activity
For kids that are ready to work on some content specific vocabulary, I created this simple matching activity for my kindergartener. Simply help them match the desert words to their definitions. And since my daughter isn’t actually reading yet, I had images below that she could cut and glue to match to the word to make it more hands-on and more visual.
It’s available here.
Desert Science Activities
What Makes a Desert a Desert?
When kids think of deserts they typically think of extreme heat and cacti. And they’re not wrong! But Antarctica is actually the largest desert in the world and it’s not because of the number of cacti there. So to help enforce this idea (and get some practice using a number line), I made this simple activity for my daughter of identifying which places are deserts based on how much precipitation they get a year.
It’s available on Teachers Pay Teachers here.
Animal Adaptations of the Desert
Animal adaptations are always cool- but especially for desert animals. To learn about desert adaptations we really leaned on the Blastoff! Desert Animals book, which is available here. It’s simple, to the point, and has engaging photographs for kids.
However, if you wanted to bring in more interactive videos, I found this one on YouTube:
Family Activities
Visiting a Zoo with Desert Animals
If there’s a zoo nearby, take a day trip and check out animals with desert adaptations! For my toddler, we also love to bring along the Toob figurines for her to match to real animals. For the preschool and primary aged years we love reading a related book right before we go so that they can look for those same traits on animals that they’ve just read about.
Visit a Desert if That’s Possible- Or Plan a Trip!
If you’re able to visit a desert, nothing beats hands-on learning. But if that’s not a possibility, plan a dream trip instead!
We live nowhere near a desert, so instead, we planned a pretend trip together. It was a great chance to look at a map, decide where to go and in what direction we would have to travel, how we would best get there, etc. Then we talked about what we would need to pack to be comfortable in the heat during the day which brought us back to adaptations and discussing the environment of the desert.
And as we are a big fan of National Parks in our family, we added some National Parks to our goal list of places to get to eventually.
Practical Life
Taking Care of a Cactus
A cactus (or a spinelss succulent) is a great place to start if your preschooler hasn’t taken care of a plant before! Along the way, talk about how they store water for days and how that makes them suitable for life in the desert.
Sensory/Fine Motor
Desert Sensory Bin
Both my toddler and preschooler love sensory bins. For this desert sensory bin, I kept it simple by just adding some play sand, Safari Toob Desert Animal figurines, and the cacti from our math activity.
To add in fine motor skills, toss in scoops and tongs and different bowls to encourage sorting and pouring.
Art Activity
Painting a Desert
The desert is so full of beautiful colors- especially at sunset. Set your child up with some watercolors and a picture for inspiration and let them paint. If you want to add some more texture, you could even sprinkle some sand in while they paint is still wet.
I’m not the craftiest mom, but I do love bringing in art into our homeschool. But if you want to include more techniques and ideas, check out this post here.
History
Learning About Ancient Egypt
While Giza and Cairo sit on the very edge of the desert, ancient Egypt is still arguably the most famous “desert” civilization- especially of antiquity. It also has a way of capturing kids’ imaginations.
Learn about the Great Pyramids of Giza and how the Nile River was the life source for this civilization.
My children love reading about places, so we read National Geographic’s Pyramids for this. It was great for young learners but also had a lot of interesting historical facts about the pyramids. My kindergartener was hooked. It’s available on Amazon here.
And if you want to extend the learning in a more interactive way and you live anywhere near Indianapolis, I can’t recommend the Indianapolis Children’s Museum enough. They have both the pyramids and the Sphinx otuside for little ones to climb on. Inside, they have an interactive exhibit where you can decode hyerglyphics, put together a mummy puzzle, and climb through a tomb. It’s awesome for kids of all ages. (Every time we see a picture of the pyramids, my toddler lights up and starts telling me everything she remembers about our trip to Indianapolis- which is a shocking amount.)
If you want more information on the museum, check out my post here.
Math:
Counting with Cactii
I love this set from Learning Resources. Using cactii as the manipulatives, work on a range of skills with your preschooler from 1:1 ratio to number lines to adding and subtracting. The cactii are a great sensory experience and the bright colors keep it engaging.
I love that the skills cover a range of ages and we’re using this from the toddler years to the early elementary years.
Also, I love that it comes with a parent’s guide for the different skills and activities you can work on with this set.
It’s available on Amazon here.
Geography Activity:
Locating Deserts Around the World
I love bringing in geography for my preschooler. For this activity, I kept it super simple and created four cards with noteable deserts throughout the world, including the Sahara and Antarctica (which my preschooler thinks is super cool that it’s technically a desert as well). Then I had her place them with me on a map (I provided a printable one in the digital download I created) and we talked about how deserts are all over the world.
This was also a great chance to talk about how on a physical map, brown often means dry and arid while green means more vegetation to help build those foundational map skills.
That printable activity is available FOR FREE here.
Additional Books:
Why Oh Why are Deserts so Dry?
If you want more detail for your child, this book from the Dr. Seuss Learning Library offers more information about exactly why deserts are dry, along with more examples of deserts around the world and animal adaptations.
It’s available on Amazon here.
Magic Postcards: A Postcard from Australia
If you would like to include a fictional book or more geography in your unit, Postcard from Australia introduces children to the country of Australia in a fun and engaging way. While not too much time is spent on the desert itself, as the Outback is such a large portion of Australia, this felt fitting to me to include.
It’s available on Amazon here.
Downloadable Resources
If you want a downloadable choice board, that’s available below. And if you want a bundle of the desert resources I created to download, that bundle is available here.
And if you want more social studies activites for young learners, check out that section of the blog here:
