It can be hard to entertain kids while keeping them away from screens, but charades is a great way to do just that.
It’s coming up with ideas that can be the most difficult part, especially if you’re playing with younger children.
And that’s where we come in!
We find that animal ideas can be one of the better ways of keeping kids entertained, and that’s what you’ll find here.
Acting out different animals in charades can be fun for children but also educational. Depending on their age, they might learn more about animals, or be able to show you what they know themselves! While charades is played silently, we find that if you’re playing with much younger kids, making the noises of the animals can help. Although this is against the rules, it’s pretty understandable breaking them for the younger ones! If you would like more ideas for children, why not check out our Kids Charades Ideas Generator? Or you can read our article on Kids Charades Ideas for more lists like this.
As we said before, if playing with younger kids, we believe it’s okay to break the rule of silence when acting out an animal. We also think that you could just explain beforehand that you are going to act out an animal or that you’re going to play animal charades. However, if you don’t want to break this rule, or you’re playing with older children or adults, you can signal this silently. To do this, you simply hold your two hands out as if they’re claws.
Note: Remember to cycle through the signals and gestures if there’s anyone that’s a little rusty before the game!
The lists below are split into 7 separate categories, including Pets and farmyard animals, Mammals, Birds, Fish, Reptiles, Invertebrates and amphibians, and Hard ideas.
These will probably be some of the most common animal types for younger children and can be a great way to kickstart any charades game to see what level players are at. The below list would be considered easy, but keep scrolling for some harder ideas for adults too!
A lot of these ideas can also be quite easy to act out, especially with children. If you would like a small list of animal ideas curated specifically for kids, you could check out our Kids Charades Ideas article for more help.
Now these ideas may be more difficult to perform, because waving your arms like you’re flying won’t be enough! But there still are some that may be easy to guess. Have a look at our list of bird animal ideas below.
Again, some ideas below may be hard to act out with kids but most should be easy. Although, I do get a sense there’s something a little fishy with this list… I’ll show myself out. Check out our list of fish ideas for a great game of charades!
See you later alligator, not in a while crocodile! Yes, both of these will most certainly be in our list below even though we’ve added them here. Have a look at some of our reptilian creatures for a fun charades game.
Our list of invertebrate and amphibian ideas can be found below. This is our final list under animal types before we jump into hard ideas, so if you’re playing with younger children, this might be the last list to work off!
You can find our list of ideas that we believe are hard to act out below. If you would like a full list of easy and hard charades ideas, why not check out our article on Easy and Hard Charades Ideas for more help.
If you’re hoping for more ideas, you could check out our different charades ideas generators for more help! We have our regular Charades Ideas Generator and our Kids Charades Ideas Generator that’s more tailored for the younger crowd! You can filter through a bunch of categories to find exactly what you need. Or, if you prefer, you can have a look at our Resources page for more articles like this one - have fun!
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