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Zoo Animal Crafts

These adorable newspaper zoo animal crafts are a fun way to recycle newspapers! We will show you how to make a lion, frog, giraffe and hippo with just a little bit of paint and glue. This is a great craft for kids of all ages!

RELATED: 100+ Craft Ideas for Kids

Newspaper Zoo Animal Crafts

You’ll only need a few supplies to make these fun zoo animals – newspaper, paint, glue and our printable templates. We’ll show you how to turn your old newspapers into four different animals, but you can also get creative and come up with your own animals too!

We also made a monkey version which is in our book –Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials. 

We loved the monkey so much we had to create other zoo animal friends to go with him! You can get the template for the monkey in our book and the templates for the hippo, giraffe, lion and frog are part of our book pre-order printable bonus packet. If you order our new book, you’ll get these free templates along with other templates that pair with the book! Just send us an email at bookbonus {at} thebestideasforkids.com with a screenshot of your pre-order!

Newspaper Monkey Zoo Animal

And don’t forget to check out our NEW book which has this monkey craft in it! Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials is bursting with easy newspaper crafts for kids like this one. But not only that, it is all recycled crafts for kids too – paper rolls, egg cartons, cardboard, popsicle sticks, jars and more!

SEE our NEW book here. 

Fun and Easy Crafting Book

Watch the video tutorial here!

Here Are The Supplies You Will Need To Make These Zoo Animals

Frog

  • Newspaper
  • Acrylic Paint – black, light green, dark green, white
  • Black Marker
  • Glue
  • Scissors

Giraffe

  • Newspaper
  • Acrylic Paint – orange, yellow, black, white
  • Black Marker
  • Glue
  • Scissors

Hippo

  • Newspaper
  • Acrylic Paint – light purple, dark purple, black, white
  • Black Marker
  • White Paper
  • Glue
  • Scissors

Lion

  • Newspaper
  • Acrylic Paint – orange, yellow, black, white
  • Black Marker
  • Glue
  • Scissors

These are easy to put together with our free printable templates too. You can get the templates as part of our pre-order printable bonus packet for our new book! Just send us an email with a screenshot of your order of our book to bookbonus {at} thebestideasforkids.com.

See what’s inside the pre-order printable packet here.

 

Directions To Make Newspaper Zoo Animals

Frog

Newspaper Frog Craft

1. Paint a large piece of newspaper light green, and two small pieces black and dark green. Set aside to dry.

2. Trace around the template elements on the colored newspaper.

Trace around the frog head on the light green paper. Trace around the cheeks and eyes on the smaller pieces. Cut out the templates.

3. Glue the eyes and cheeks to the face.

4. Dip the end of a pencil into white paint and add a white mark to each eye.

Frog Newspaper Craft for Kids

5. Draw the mouth on with a black marker.

 

Giraffe

Giraffe Craft

1. Paint a large piece of newspaper orange. Paint another piece yellow and a smaller piece black. Set aside to dry.

2. Trace around the template elements on the colored newspaper.

Trace around orange for the head, outside ears and top of the giraffe. Trace around yellow for the inside ears and mouth. Trace around black for the eyes. Cut out the templates.

3. Glue the eyes, mouth, ears and top of the giraffe to the face.

Giraffe Zoo Animal Craft

4. Dip the end of a pencil into white paint and add a white mark to each eye.

5. Using a black marker, draw the mouth and nostrils on the yellow part of the giraffe’s face.

 

Hippo

Hippo Craft

1. Paint a large piece of newspaper light purple and another large piece dark purple. Paint a small piece black. Set aside to dry.

2. Trace around the template elements on the colored newspaper.

Trace around light purple for the head and outside ears. Trace around dark purple for the inside ears and mouth. Trace around black for the eyes and nostrils. Trace around the white paper for the teeth. Cut out the templates.

3. Glue the dark purple mouth onto the light purple head. Glue the eyes, ears and nostrils on.

Hippo Newspaper Craft

4. Dip the end of a pencil into white paint and add a white mark to each eye.

5. Draw the mouth with a black marker and then glue the teeth on.

 

Lion

Lion Craft for Kids

1. Paint a large piece of newspaper orange and another large piece yellow. Paint a small piece black.

2. Trace around the template elements on the colored newspaper.

Trace around yellow for the head and outside ears. Trace orange for the inside ears and nose.

Draw your own lion mane that would fit around the head and cut this out from the orange newspaper.

Trace around black for the eyes. Cut out all of the templates.

Lion Zoo Animal Craft

3. Glue the orange and yellow parts of the ears together and attach to the large yellow head piece. Glue the face on top of the large orange mane.

4.  Glue the eyes and nose to the face.

5. Dip the end of a pencil into white paint and add a white mark to each eye.

6. Using a black marker, add whiskers, dots and the mouth.

Zoo Animal Lion Craft

 

We love how cute these wild animals are! These are perfect for an animal theme craft or just to make for fun. And the best part is you don’t need a lot of supplies to make them!

This is one of the 60 crafts in our book – Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials – see more of the projects in our book here.

See more newspaper and scrap paper crafts from our book here: 

Newspaper Chapter - Craft Book

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