Animals in Italian-Language learning for kids with Free Printable flashcards

Recently, I shared an article which included 6 Italian learning games for kids using the flashcards that I personally created. As you know this is a bilingual blog and that article had a huge success on the Italian side. So no longer after publishing it, I created another series of flashcards, one to learn the names of the animals in Italian.

Because if you’re trying to teach a second language to your kids I totally support you. You can read all the benefits of being bilingual here! And if you chose Italian as a second language, I’m already a big fan of your bilingual parenting choices 😉

Animals in Italian can have very funny names so I decided to add more fun games to the list to take full advantage of these colorful flashcards.

You can download both of the series by filling out the form at the end of this post!

A small side note on raising bilingual kids

Someone “gently” pointed out to me that ‘children are not barrels that you can fill out with knowledge by forcing them’. It was pretty clear that this person didn’t even take the time to read my previous article, so I want to specify it again: I AGREE!

The main goals of these activities are play-time and adult-child interaction. Basically a great way to combine business with pleasure! 🙂 Therefore, if you’re raising bilingual kids, you’ll be able to achieve your goal playing these simple but educational games without forcing them.

In the games that I’m about to share with you, as much as in the previous article, there will never have to be any kind of pressure. It’s fundamental to respect your child’s times and natural curiosity.

Don’t worry mama, she’ll be the first to show you when she’s ready, but don’t be surprised if it happens as soon as 18 months old or even earlier.

The same way, you’ll be able to recognize when she’s ready to level up and add more challenge to the game. Every kid is different so don’t overthink this, ok? Just have fun!!

This being said, let’s go learn some animals in Italian, ok?!

Games to learn the names of animals in Italian

There are so many variations of these games that it’s almost impossible to list them all.

You can literally free your imagination.

I’m not going to explain the games already shared in the previous article, but I’ll quickly recap them because you can use them all also to learn the animals in Italian.

Here they are:

Point the image and say the name
Point the imagine and guess the name
“Where is…?”
Memory
Write the name

For the complete explanation of these games, as well as the full instructions on how to print and use the flashcards at their best, I recommend you once more to read this post.

But with these brand new flashcards created to learn the animals in Italian, you can add the following variations, such as:

“What sound does it make?”. When your kid has already learned the names of the animal, you can have fun trying to recognize it by the sound that it makes. Get ready to laugh your pants off, mama! It’s really hilarious to watch her try to imitate the bear that, for some reason, will be identical to the lion or the tiger. Not to mention how much fun she’ll have howling like a wolf. It’s rolling-on-the-floor-funny. An important advice though: don’t reveal the sounds before she learned the name, especially if your child is very young. As you know the first rudiments of words are simply sounds and mono-syllabic. For example, if you associate the sound “mooo” (in Italian “muuu” but it sounds the same) to the picture of the cow, she might think that’s the name of the cow. Wait until she learns the names and then have fun imitating the sounds. There’s nothing wrong in learning the sounds first, but I had to specify this since the first goal is to learn the animals’ names in Italian.
“Where does it live?”. After downloading the flashcards, you’ll notice that I separated them in farm animals, jungle animals and forest animals. When kids are very young they clearly couldn’t care less about this, but as they grow they’ll show interest and it’ll be fun for them being able to distinguish each animal by their habitats. You can show the card and ask her to tell you where it belongs to, either by giving a hint or a 2 options to choose from. Or you can spread the flashcards on the floor and ask her to fetch as many farm animals she can find.
“Let’s imitate the animals”. As we all know, every animal has its own characteristic behavior, usually pretty easy to mimic. This is something you can include since the beginning, when she’s still learning the names. It’ll actually make it easier. If you pull the monkey card saying out loud “scimmia” (monkey) while imitating the classic scratch-the-head gesture with a funny face, you’ll make her laugh and motivate her to remember the name. Emotions get imprinted in human beings memory way more than words. Will it make you feel like a moron sometimes? Absolutely, but who cares? Nobody is asking you to do it in the middle of the grocery store if it makes you feel uncomfortable (I personally think it’s hilarious and do it all the time lol). It’s just you, your child and lots of laughter. And you can also do it in reverse mode: show the card, mimic the animal and let her say the name.

Infinite possibilities

It’s time to spread your imagination’s wings and let it fly, mama!

These cards really allow you to play a lot of different games to learn the animals in Italian.

The goal of the list of games is to give you an idea of what you can do with them and I assure you that once you start, the ideas will start to flow.

Don’t forget to reward every attempt!!

Remember, it must be fun and your child needs to feel proud of herself for every achievement.

Steps to use the Italian Animals flashcards

Let’s recap:

Fill out the form below to download the flashcards (you’ll receive both the animals AND the alphabets cards in 2 separate emails). *Side note= I’ll send you the alphabet cards first in order to give you the time to read and learn the games plus the instructions. You’ll receive the animals in a second email.
Read the “6 easy Italian learning games” where you’ll find the first list of games and the instructions on how to print the cards
Add these Animal specific games to the list
HAVE THE BEST TIME PLAYING WITH YOUR KID!!