Good Night Gorilla Book Activities {Book Inspired Printables for Kids}

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Good Night Gorilla is one of those books that kids just get the giggles over. And they will be giggling even more as they play with these wonderful book activities and printables for kids inspired by the story. We at Kids Activities Blog hope you and your child have fun with these activities as you read through the book. If so, please come back and tell us all about it!

Good Night Gorilla

Good Night, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman, tells the story of a zookeeper as he goes around the zoo and says goodnight to the animals. What he doesn’t know is that a little impish gorilla has stolen his keys and is letting all the animals out. The animals follow the zookeeper home and into bed. As his wife says goodnight, all the animals respond. So she gets out of bed, leads them back to the zoo, and puts them back in their cages ¦ or so she thinks. We love this book because of its limited text. There is repetition which offers children the opportunity to predict what the zookeeper is saying to each animal. Added interaction for young readers could be making each animal’s sounds as they escape from their cages.

Printables for Kids

Color Matching Two versions of this fun printable are available. Use the first for younger children to practice color. The second printable can help older children match color names to the appropriate colors.

Book Activities Dramatic Play A large appliance box can be made into a cage for children to escape from or to let stuffed animals out of. I wasn’t able to obtain one, so we created a cage out of our dining room table and black streamers. I taped the streamers a few inches apart so they barely touched the floor. This allowed my little monkey to go in and out of the cage as he chose. For this zoo dramatic play, I also added various stuffed zoo animals to invite my son to play. Additionally, there was a prop bucket with items a zookeeper would use: keys, flashlight, and the Goodnight Gorilla book.

Book Inspired

Small Motor Skill Practice Provide a variety of keys and locks for children to practice opening. To simplify the guessing of which key goes with which lock, I painted part of them with corresponding colors.

Other great activities to go with this book would be to paint with keys or use plastic animals as stamps. Good Night, Gorilla is a great book for young readers in that it is simple, yet provides a story line that is easily expanded into other fun learning activities. If you can’t find the book, you can see an animated version here.

More Kids Activities

These are some amazingly fun activities to incorporate into your child’s Good Night Gorilla story time. Hands-on book activities help children remember the story but also help them learn about the real world around them. For more wonderful book loving kids activities, you should take a look at these:

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