Cat Activities for Preschoolers – 7 Free Printables

Young children seem to love cats - they are furry, cuddly and cute.  Pete the Cat books and Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat offer wonderful opportunities for literacy with a cat theme.  If you are looking to extend cat picture books to practice visual motor, fine motor, and gross motor skills here are 6 free cat activities for preschoolers to print and use.

Young children seem to love cats – they are furry, cuddly and cute.  Pete the Cat books and Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat offer wonderful opportunities for literacy with a cat theme.  If you are looking to extend cat picture books to practice visual motor, fine motor, and gross motor skills here are 6 free cat activities for preschoolers to print and use.

#1 – Simple Cat Drawing

Check out this sample cat (and airplane) pages from Simple Shape Drawings.  

These freebies include two simple pictures to draw around the outline of the cat and the airplane.  There are green start dots with an arrow to reinforce starting at the top.  The students will practice:

  • visual motor skills
  • graded muscle control to stay in the lines
  • prewriting skills

Get more details about the Complete Simple Shape Drawings packet

The Simple Shape Drawings digital download includes 20+ simple animals and objects to draw around the outline.  Students get tired of practicing visual motor skills following a basic path, use these activities to draw something instead.  The animals and objects include cat, airplane, rabbit, unicorn, guitar, dog, football, snake, dolphin, tree, flower, dinosaur, bear, apple, owl, moon/stars, lizard, boy, girl, wolf, turtle, and seahorse.

The Simple Shape Drawings digital download includes 20+ simple animals and objects to draw around the outline.  Students get tired of practicing visual motor skills following a basic path, use these activities to draw something instead.  The animals and objects include cat, airplane, rabbit, unicorn, guitar, dog, football, snake, dolphin, tree, flower, dinosaur, bear, apple, owl, moon/stars, lizard, boy, girl, wolf, turtle, and seahorse.

Download the Free Simple Shape Drawings Here

Download the Cat and Airplane drawing here

#2 – Can you catch the correct butterflies?

Can you help the cat to catch the correct butterflies?  Download this freebie from the Catching Butterflies complete packet.  Connect the dots to form the mystery letter.  Once you recognize the letter, catch (circle with your pencil) all of the matching butterfly letters.

This printable Catching Butterflies freebie encourages:

  • visual motor skills
  • visual discrimination skills
  • number recognition
  • letter recognition

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CATCHING BUTTERFLIES SAMPLE PAGE

This freebie is from the complete Catching Butterflies packet that is available here.

Catching Butterflies visual motor packet is an instant digital download of 26 activity black and white activity pages to practice visual motor, visual discrimination, and letter recognition skills.  Complete the dot to dot to reveal the letter.  Circle all of the matching butterfly letters.

Catching Butterflies visual motor packet is an instant digital download of 26 activity black and white activity pages to practice visual motor, visual discrimination, and letter recognition skills.  Complete the dot to dot to reveal the letter.  Circle all of the matching butterfly letters.  FIND OUT MORE.

#3 – Fine Motor Cat Activities for Preschoolers

There are so many of us who just love CATS!  Adult and kids alike enjoy these cuddly creatures.  This cat fine motor game requires fine motor skills to fill in the cat and you can download it for FREE below.  Plus, you can watch a video of the game in action.

Directions for Flip and Fill from Your Therapy Source
    1. Print each player a cat board.
    2. Decide how you will fill the 20 circles on the cat: small balls of clay, tongs with pom-poms, dot markers, color with crayons, pennies or bingo chips.
    3. Flip a coin.  If it lands on heads, fill in two circles.  If it lands on tails, fill in one circle.
    4. The first player to fill in all 20 circles on the cat is the winner.

What skills will children practice when playing the Cat Fine Motor Game?

This game encourages children to practice:

  • fine motor skills
  • finger strengthening
  • hand strengthening
  • eye-hand coordination
  • visual motor coordination

Download your FREE Cat Fine Motor Game

You can download your FREE copy of the Cat Fine Motor Game.

Get more information on the Complete Flip and Fill Animal Fine Motor Game Packet

The Flip and Fill Animal Fine Motor Game digital download includes 20 different animal game boards to practice fine motor skills and encourage hand strengthening.

Watch the Flip and Fill Fine Motor games in action.

#4 – Cat Whisker Lacing Activity for Preschoolers

How cute is this cat’s whiskers busy bag?  I happen to find it adorable!  Just print out the free download, cut out the kitty’s, laminate and hole punch to indicate where to lace the pipe cleaners.  Toss some pipe cleaners cut in half inside the busy bag and it is all set to go.  The child can lace the pipe cleaners through the holes to give the cat’s their whiskers.

I only used one hole punch to lace the pipe cleaners through but you could do two.  I liked the end result better with only one hole punched and lacing all the pipe cleaners through the one hole.  If it is difficult for the child, punch the one hole several times to make it larger to fit the pipe cleaners easier.

cat whiskers busy bag

 

This activity encourages scissors skills, hand strengthening with the hole punching, visual motor skills with the lacing and creativity.

If you wanted to, you could color the cats before you laminate them.  I like the black and white cats because the pipe cleaner whiskers really stand out on the white background.

You can download the cat’s to print and lace at Your Therapy Source for free!

Here are some Shape People Punches that are also free.

Want more ideas for hole punching?  Check out Hole Punch Palooza

#5 – Finish the Cat Activities for Preschoolers for Visual Closure

Do you need an activity to practice symmetry, visual motor and visual closure skills?  These cat finish the picture printables are FREE (download at the end of the post).  It includes three levels of difficulty:

  1. Easiest – Trace along the dotted lines to complete the other half of the picture.
  2. Harder – Complete the missing parts of the other half of the picture.
  3. Hardest – Finish the missing half of the picture.

What is visual closure?

Visual closure is a visual perceptual skill that allows you to know what an object is even when the object is only partially visible. For example, if your sock is sticking out from under your bed you recognize it is your
missing sock. Another example is reading words together instead of every letter at a time.  This freebie has the children practice visual closure skills by complete the other half of the symmetrical picture.

This Shape Owls digital download packet includes 10 different owl shapes with 3 levels of difficulty to practice shape discrimination, visual closure, and handwriting skills.

What are visual motor skills?

Coordinating your eyes and hands to draw and write are visual motor skills.  Students need visual motor skills to perform actions such as drawing pictures, writing letters and catching a ball.  These finish the picture printables work on practicing visual motor skills because the child has to trace or draw to complete the symmetrical picture.

Download your FREE Finish the Picture Printables here

The Complete the Picture digital download includes 25 exercises with three levels of difficulty to practice symmetry, visual motor, and visual closure skills.

This freebie is from the full Complete the Picture digital download.  It includes 25 exercises with three levels of difficulty to practice symmetry, visual motor, and visual closure skills.

Sign up to receive the weekly email newsletter and announcements from Your Therapy Source.  You will get a link to download the FREE PRINTABLE.  If you are already a subscriber, please enter your email and you will be redirected to the link.

#6 – Find and Color the Cats

Winter Visual Perceptual Puzzle Freebie Find and Color the Winter CatsHere is a cat freebie from the Winter Visual Perceptual Puzzles packet.

Isn’t it so cute?  You can download it here.

#7 – Yoga Cat Activities for Preschoolers – Another FREE Printable

 

Don’t forget that the children need to move like a cat too!  And of course, yoga is just the exercise to practice all your cat moves.  Download this FREE Sun Salutation for Cats yoga free printable below.  (The illustrations were created by Annykos used under a Shutterstock license.)

Sign up to receive the weekly email newsletter and announcements from Your Therapy Source.  You will get a link to download the FREE PRINTABLE.  If you are already a subscriber, please enter your email and you will be redirected to the link.


Young children seem to love cats - they are furry, cuddly and cute.  Pete the Cat books and Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat offer wonderful opportunities for literacy with a cat theme.  If you are looking to extend cat picture books to practice visual motor, fine motor, and gross motor skills here are 6 free cat activities for preschoolers to print and use.