Animal Trivia for Kids

Animal Trivia for kids is a printable educational game that introduces players to the amazing animal diversity on our planet. Challenge each other to a battle of wits and learn together!

Which bird is among the smartest animals on the planet? What do elephants use their trunks for? How do turtles navigate around the globe?

You will find out if you play this printable trivia game of fun facts about the diverse and wonderful animals that inhabit our planet!

A huge diversity of species, about 2 million that are currently known to science, lives next to us. They come in different shapes, sizes, colours and survive in a vast variety of environments. This animal trivia for kids gives a glimpse into their world, highlighting an array of amazing behaviours and adaptations, some familiar and some surprising, that the animals have come up with over millions of years.

Orangutans have feet that are quite similar to their hands, with a toe that works as a thumb. As a result, they can grab things with their feet just as efficiently as with their hands, so they can spend their life swinging from branch to branch!

The bright and vibrant parrotfish likes to snack on algae-bearing corals and rocks. What does the waste from such a diet look like? Sand! As a result, parrotfish are great contributors to the formation of sandy beaches and even islands.

Kangaroos give birth to their young after only a month. The development of a kangaroo baby at that point is similar to a 7-week-old human fetus. Imagine that! That’s where the famous kangaroo pouch comes in handy – their babies spends many of the following months growing inside it.

Isn’t it amazing? Children will learn these facts and many more while playing the printable animal trivia game!

More than that, we hope that the animal trivia for kids will provide a starting point for further exploration and discovery, making players excited to know more about our neighbours on this planet.

Animal Trivia for Kids Features

The animal trivia game includes:

24 double-sided cards with handmade drawings of animals and 144 animal trivia questions and answers each on a variety of animals from all over the world
a print-and-fold template for a special die
printable templates for a game cover and rule booklet

Animal Trivia game cover, rules, and die template

There are twenty four animals included in the game. They are magpies, hummingbirds, penguins, armadillos, orangutans, elephants, kangaroos, bears, bats, squirrels, whales, iguanas, snakes, frogs, sea turtles, snails, jellyfish, hermit crabs, parrotfish, spiders, butterflies, ladybugs, and termites. Instead of focusing on a particular species, the game focuses on traits and behaviours that are common in a group of related animals.

12 animals included in the printable animal trivia game

The cards are double-sided. One side features a watercolour painting of an animal – they are on white backgrounds, which is economical of printer ink! The other has six questions and answers. There are three multiple-choice questions and three open-ended questions.

The special die includes numbers from 1 to 3. It determines which questions the player will have to answer. You can make a die from the included paper template, but it is also possible to use a standard d6 die and substitute rolls of 4, 5, and 6 as 1, 2, and 3.

The animal trivia for kids game packs nicely into a stack of cards that you can easily take along if you are going somewhere. You can also give it as a little present! The truth is, you can print as many presents as you want.

How to Play Animal Trivia Game

Print 26 double-sided trivia cards and cut them out.

Each card comes with six questions – three easy and three hard. Players can choose whether they want to answer an easy or a hard question. The easy questions come with multiple-choice answers and are worth one point; the hard questions are open-ended and are worth two points. Rolling the die determines which question of the chosen difficulty gets asked.

The player is being questioned by the player on their right. When playing with beginning readers, a parent or a teacher can read all the questions. In case the reading adults also want to play and score, it is easy for them to cover the answer at the bottom of the card.

If the player answers the question correctly, they get the card and keep it for scoring. If not, the card goes back to the bottom of the pile, so someone else will have to answer something from it later.

The game ends when all the cards are gone, and the player with the most points wins.

You can easily adapt the animal trivia game for the classroom. One possible variant would be eliminating taking turns. The teacher would have to read all the cards, and the students would have to venture guesses. Another variant would be playing in small groups.