• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fantastic Fun & Learning

Fun learning activities and things to do with kids

  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy and Disclosure
  • Themes
  • Holidays
  • Printables
  • Concepts
    • Alphabet
      • Letter A
      • Letter B
      • Letter C
      • Letter D
      • Letter F
      • Letter G
      • Letter I
      • Letter J
      • Letter K
      • Letter M
      • Letter N
      • Letter O
      • Letter P
      • Letter Q
      • Letter R
      • Letter S
      • Letter T
      • Letter U
      • Letter W
      • Letter Z
    • Art
    • Crafts
    • Fine Motor
    • Gross Motor
    • Phonemic Awareness
    • Phonics
    • Math
    • Outdoor Play
    • Science
    • Sensory
  • By Age
    • Baby
    • Toddler
    • Preschool
    • Kindergarten
  • By Month
  • Books
    • Books and Activities
      • Book Lists
      • Book Related Activities
  • Shop
You are here: Home / Book Lists / Books About Underground Animals

Books About Underground Animals

By Shaunna Evans 13 Comments · This content may contain affiliate links.

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

There were a few books we enjoyed reading to go along with our U is for Underground animals theme. Some of the the books I’m sharing today are related to underground animals in general as this was the focus of our activities. I’m also including a few books that we read about specific animals. For each individual animal that lives underground there are also many other books that could support your underground animal theme.

Underground Animal Books{Note: As always, this book list is based on my personal preference, and I’ve included Amazon affiliate links for your convenience.}

More Resources for Little Book Lovers

The best way to encourage a love of reading is to provide kids with many opportunities to engage with a wide variety of books that are of interest to them. That’s why we share so many books lists on Fantastic Fun and Learning. We want to make it easy for you to find great books your kids will love. Over the years we’ve also discovered some helpful tools for connecting kids and books.

Digital libraries are one very handy way to do this. Epic! is one of our favorite online libraries. It’s full of over 25,000 books, learning videos, quizzes and more for kids 12 and under…and it’s free for educators. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Book Boxes are another fun way to get kids excited about reading. What kid doesn’t love to get a special delivery in the mail?! The crew over at Bookroo finds the best little known books that you won’t already have in your library, and they send them to you each month. Take a peak inside a Bookroo Box here.

Book-Based Activities are also a lot of fun for kids. Jodie over at Growing Book by Book has saved us all a ton of time and created a full year of Book-Based Activity Calendars so that you can extend the fun with a special book each week.

Books about Spring

And Then It’s Spring is more about the arrival of spring than underground animals, but there is a wonderful illustration of different underground animals in their tunnels and burrows. This is the book that initially sparked the kids’ interest in learning about things that live underground.

Denise Fleming’s underGROUND is perfect for preschoolers. The text is very simple, and there are few words per page.  This allowed us to focus on the meaning of the words and the detailed illustrations. The kids enjoyed spotting each of the various underground creatures on each page. We revisited this book many times throughout our theme and enjoyed reading the brief descriptions of the animals at the back of the book.

Animals Under Our Feet (We Both Read) is designed for beginning readers to read along with a proficient reader.  The left page includes simple text while the right page includes more detailed explanations and more challenging text. We read some of the facts that the kids were most interested in, and we will revisit this book again as the kids begin to bcome readers themselves. At the preschool level, the kids liked some of the basic facts and loved the photographs throughout the book.

Deep Down Underground is not currently in print, but if you are doing an underground theme it is definitely worth finding at a local library if you can. Kids enjoy chanting along and joining in the actions as they count underground creatures from 1 to 10 and back again. I also loved the rich vocabulary words used throughout the book. The use of words like scamper, prance, and glide, give the opportunity for great discussions and are excellent for early exposure.

    

We also discovered The Hole Truth series as we explored this theme. The current books in this series include:

Groundhog’s Burrow

Chipmunk’s Hole

Fox’s Den

Prairie Dog’s Hideaway

The preschoolers enjoyed learning about each of the individual animals through these books, and there is a lot of useful information that also makes this series perfect for us to revisit in future years. All of the books used many nonfiction text features that are great for teaching kids. Some specific examples are maps, labels, diagrams, glossaries, and indexes.

My favorite part of the series is the inclusion of thought provoking questions throughout the books. Many of them started with, “Why do you think…?” Even at the preschool level these questions can be helpful in getting kids to think about what they are learning and come up with reasons that support their ideas. I LOVED the kids’ answers to many of these questions!

What books would you add to this list? They can be about underground animals in general or your favorite books about specific animals that live underground. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

This post has been shared at some of these fantastic link parties.

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

Filed Under: Book Lists, Kindergarten, Letter U, Literacy, Preschool, Uncategorized, Underground Animals Tagged With: letter U theme, preschool science, underground animal theme, underground animals

Previous Post: « Favorite Children’s Museums and Online Resources
Next Post: Dinosaur Sensory Bin »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Erica @What Do We Do All Day?

    June 3, 2013 at 6:06 am

    I love And Then It’s Spring. Thanks for sharing at The Children’s Bookshelf, I hope you join us again when we return in September.

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      June 4, 2013 at 9:05 am

      I’m not sure what I’ll do all summer without you guys! Love the linky…looking forward to seeing it up again in the fall.

      Reply
  2. Sarah

    May 31, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    Wow! I didn’t think of Underground Animals for the letter U. I may have to try to incorporate that next year. Thank you for sharing your favorite books on the subject. I’m sure your preschoolers had a fun time learning about it!!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      June 4, 2013 at 8:55 am

      Thank, Sarah! We love doing simple twists on our letter themes. I’d love to see what you come up with if you try this theme next year with your kids!

      Reply
  3. Leslie

    May 30, 2013 at 11:51 pm

    Thanks for the handy links! Books are indeed powerful, aren’t they? It’s amazing the sheer number books/topics of everything/anything people have written about… and yet we still go in search of great books as teachers for just what we need. {wink}
    – Leslie

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      May 31, 2013 at 5:42 am

      I love books…I think it must be a teaching job hazard. 🙂 And yes, no matter how many books I already have on a topic, I still go in search of new ones. You never know what’ll find!

      Reply
  4. Carla

    May 29, 2013 at 2:35 pm

    This is a fabulous resource–I love book lists!! Thanks so much for sharing it at Teach Me Tuesday at Preschool Powol Packets!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      May 30, 2013 at 6:23 am

      I have a mild book addiction, so I’m glad to share!

      Reply
  5. Tara from The Magnolia Barn

    May 26, 2013 at 11:42 am

    I had not thought of an Underground Animals theme, but how fun it would be. My daughter adores anything with animals! Pinning this great list!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      May 26, 2013 at 10:19 pm

      My kids love animals, too! Their interest helped spark the idea for this theme. Thanks for pinning!

      Reply
  6. Sugar Aunts

    May 25, 2013 at 9:35 pm

    I love book round ups! Thanks for joining us at Share It Saturday!
    Colleen at Sugar Aunts

    Reply
  7. sarahelisabeth

    May 24, 2013 at 6:46 am

    This looks like a useful and different set of books which would appeal to my preschooler.

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      May 26, 2013 at 10:11 pm

      Thanks! We love exploring our themes with great books. I hope your preschooler enjoys some of them.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Search

Join in the fun!

Facebooktwitterpinterestinstagram

Subscribe via Email

Hi, I’m Shaunna!

Welcome to Fantastic Fun and Learning. Here you'll find plenty of great ideas for fun learning activities and things to do with kids.

Popular Right Now

Preschool Name Activities

Free Printable Scavenger Hunts for Kids

Make Germs Scatter Hand Washing Science Demonstration

Our Recent Posts

  • Ways to Show Numbers to 10 Play Dough Mats
  • Pattern Heart Fine Motor Mats
  • Winter Mitten Fine Motor Mats

Copyright © 2023 | Privacy Policy