Adorable Safari Animal Crafts: Make a Tiger, Giraffe + Monkey from Cups

Let’s make safari crafts for kids! Create this cute set of safari animals with styrofoam cups. Foam cup crafts are a wonderfully fun creative activity for kids of all ages – especially preschoolers, kindergarten and elementary age children.

Safari Animal Crafts for Kids Made from Styrofoam Cups

Today we are making a styrofoam cup safari animals: cheeky monkey, styrofoam cup tiger and styrofoam cup giraffe.

Related: More Animal crafts

These animal crafts made from cups are great fun to make and play with, and are wonderful interactive tools and story starters when teaching kids fun and interesting facts about wild animals.

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Supplies Needed for Safari Craft

Directions for Disposable Cup Crafts

Step 1

Just place the styrofoam cups upside down (open end of cup down) on a sheet of newspaper or messy mat and let the kids off to do the rest.

They should start off by painting the cup with the main base colour for the animal. If you are using acrylic paint just one coat will generally do, poster paints might need a second coat.

Step 2

Once dry the kids can first draw on the cup with a pencil if they like or just start painting on the eyes and character details before leaving aside to dry again.

Step 3

While drying the craft scissors can be put to good use cutting the pipe cleaners to the lengths needed for ears and wiggly tails etc.

Foam cups are soft and ideal for kids to push in the pipe cleaners and bend to the shapes they want, so easy, (parents cover over the pointy ends of the pipe cleaners on the inside of the cup with some masking tape or sticky tape to avoid any ouchies later).

So next time you’re at the supermarket pop a packet of foam cups into your trolley – they are the best fun for quick and simple crafting with children.

Preschool Learning Ideas with Safari Animal Craft

You can also continue the fun by using this cup craft activity as an interactive way to teach kids more about wild animals.

• What countries you would find giraffes and tigers
• Giraffe is the world’s tallest land animals, what other tall animals can you think of?
• What the baby names for wild animals are (e.g, baby giraffe is called a calf, a baby tiger is called a cub)
• How many different types of monkeys can you name?
• What do the animals eat?
• Like human fingerprints, every tiger has a unique pattern of stripes that can be used to identify it! What other animal with stripes can you think of?

Our Experience With This Safari Craft

These safari crafts were not only fun, but educational. And anytime my kids get to paint, they’re happy. But this hands on safari craft let’s you make animals like tigers, monkey, and giraffes. However, you could try your hand to make other animals too like: lions, elephants, zebras.

It’s easy, and children can benefit from from this hands-on activity that will also give them fine motor skills practice.

More Animal Crafts & Fun from Kids Activities Blog

Tiger Crafts & Fun for Kids

Giraffe Crafts & Fun for Kids

Monkey Crafts & Fun for Kids

How did your cup crafts turn out? Did you make a foam cup monkey, foam cup tiger and foam cup giraffe?