Touch and Feel Baby Animals
Summer Nights, Story Time & Baby Animals 🐥📚
One of my favorite things about summer is that bedtime doesn't have to mean straight to sleep. Around here, bedtime often turns into activity time, where we slow down, spend time together, and let our imaginations take over.
This week, my 8-year-old took over story time and proudly read Touch and Feel Baby Animals by Rachel Hale and Baby Einstein: Touch and Feel Baby Animals to the rest of us.
Touch and Feel Baby Animals by Rachel Hale introduces babies and young children to some of the world's cutest baby animals through beautiful real-life photography and interactive touch-and-feel textures. Rachel Hale is well known for her heartwarming photographs of puppies, kittens, farm animals, and wildlife, and this board book combines her adorable photography with sensory elements that encourage little ones to explore through touch.
The book helps develop early vocabulary, sensory awareness, and fine motor skills while creating opportunities for parents and children to interact together. Its sturdy pages and simple text make it a favorite for infants and toddlers who love exploring different textures while learning about animals.
Baby Einstein: Touch and Feel Baby Animals is part of the popular Baby Einstein collection, a series designed to introduce young children to the world through play and discovery. This interactive board book features colorful photographs of baby animals alongside textured patches that invite children to touch, feel, and compare different surfaces.
The book encourages sensory exploration while helping children build language skills, recognize animals, and strengthen early cognitive development. Like many Baby Einstein products, it focuses on making learning fun through hands-on experiences that engage multiple senses at once, making it an excellent choice for babies and toddlers just beginning to explore books.
These books are wonderful for fostering a love of reading from an early age while giving little ones the chance to learn through seeing, touching, and talking about the adorable baby animals on each page——-
And watching an older sibling read to the younger ones was one of those simple moments that melts a mama's heart.
Of course, we couldn't read the books just once! We flipped through them several times, and one round quickly turned into a house full of giggles as everyone shouted out the sounds each animal makes. Moo! Quack! Baa! Oink! It might have been loud, but it was the best kind of chaos.
After story time, we turned our books into a hands-on learning activity. The kids each colored a duck and glued real feathers onto it to make their own touch-and-feel animal craft. They loved running their fingers across the soft feathers just like the textures in the books.
Then we added a little learning challenge. I had a page with numbered squares, and the number in each box told them how many animals they had to draw. They picked their favorite baby animals from the books and filled each square with their creations. It was a fun way to practice counting, creativity, and observation all at once.
These are the moments I hope my kids remember someday—the summer nights that stretched a little longer, the silly animal noises, the big sibling reading stories, and the simple joy of learning together.
Because sometimes the best adventures happen right at home. ❤️
25 Fun Activities: 🐥🐮🐰
If your little ones loved Touch and Feel Baby Animals by Rachel Hale and Baby Einstein: Touch and Feel Baby Animals, keep the fun going with these easy, low-prep activities that encourage learning through play!
🐾 1. Animal Scavenger Hunt
Hide stuffed animals or plastic animals around the house and let your child find them after reading.
🎲 2. Roll & Draw
Roll a die and draw that many animals from the books.
🖐️ 3. Handprint Animals
Turn handprints into ducks, chicks, or bunnies with paint or markers.
🥕 4. Feed the Animals
Cut out paper animals and "feed" them the foods they eat using pom-poms, paper carrots, or pretend grass.
🐣 5. Baby & Mama Match
Print or draw baby animals and their mothers and have children match them together.
🎨 6. Texture Collage
Use feathers, cotton balls, felt, tissue paper, bubble wrap, sandpaper, and yarn to recreate the textures from the books.
🔢 7. Count the Animals
Count how many animals appear on each page and compare which page has more or less.
📏 8. Big vs. Small
Talk about which animals are big and which are small, then sort toy animals into groups.
🎵 9. Freeze Dance Animal Edition
Play music and dance. When the music stops, call out an animal and everyone acts like it.
🐑 10. Sensory Bin Farm
Fill a bin with oats, hay, or shredded paper and add toy farm animals for imaginative play.
📚 11. Let a Big Sibling Read
Older siblings can practice reading while younger siblings listen and interact with the textures.
✂️ 12. Make a Touch-and-Feel Book
Create your own pages using cotton balls, feathers, felt, and fabric scraps.
🐾 13. Animal Tracks
Dip toy animals in washable paint and make footprints across paper.
🌳 14. Nature Walk
See if you can spot birds, rabbits, squirrels, or ducks outside after reading.
🍎 15. Feed the Farm Snack
Serve animal crackers, cheese cubes, fruit, and veggies while talking about what different animals eat.
🐄 16. Farm Yoga
Stretch like a cat, hop like a bunny, flap like a duck, or crawl like a turtle.
🎭 17. Animal Charades
Take turns acting out animals while everyone guesses.
🧩 18. Animal Sorting
Sort toy animals by color, size, habitat, or number of legs.
🎶 19. Sing & Count
Sing "Old MacDonald" and let your child pick the next animal for each verse.
✏️ 20. Alphabet Animals
Find an animal that starts with each letter of the alphabet.
🖍️ 21. Sticker Scene
Create a farm scene using animal stickers and crayons.
🐤 22. Egg Carton Farm
Use an empty egg carton to make little homes for tiny toy animals.
💦 23. Animal Wash Station
Wash plastic animals in a tub of soapy water with toothbrushes and washcloths.
📷 24. Animal Photo Hunt
Flip through old magazines or print pictures of baby animals and make a collage.
❤️ 25. Read It Again
Read the books multiple times, but switch it up! Whisper the story, use silly voices, clap for every duck, or make every animal sound together.
The best part about these activities is that they don't require expensive supplies or elaborate planning. A simple book can spark hours of creativity, learning, and family connection. Those little moments spent reading, laughing, crafting, and pretending together are often the ones our children remember the most. 🌾📚🐥