This animal outlines crochet yarn craft is a cheerful hands-on project for kids, classrooms, and family craft time. It uses the tutorial steps below as the practical guide while adding helpful planning notes so the project feels easier to prepare, follow, and finish. Gather the supplies first, give yourself a little workspace, and enjoy making something creative from simple materials.
Instructions for how to use these animal templates:
- Scroll down and find the page you want.
- Click on any of the photos below, or on the text links below them. A printable PDF file will open in a new window. (NOTE: The images themselves are not printable quality.)
- Print the PDF on 8.5 inch by 11 inch, letter sized paper.
Fun things to do with outlines of animals:
- Make animal coloring pages by printing the outlines on regular paper and letting kids add colors, patterns, faces, backgrounds, and fun details.
- Create cut-and-paste animal crafts by coloring the animal shapes, cutting them out, and gluing them onto construction paper, cardstock, or a larger habitat scene.
- Use them as animal templates for tracing onto colored paper, felt, craft foam, cardboard, or scrapbook paper.
- Decorate the animal outlines with craft supplies like cotton balls for sheep, tissue paper for fish scales, yarn for lion manes, feathers for birds, or paper scraps for any animal collage.
- Make classroom bulletin boards with farm animals, ocean animals, woodland animals, pets, or zoo animals as the main theme.
- Create animal habitat scenes by placing the printable animals in barns, forests, oceans, ponds, trees, grasslands, or pet homes.
- Use them for learning activities by matching each animal outline with its name, habitat, sound, baby animal name, or favorite food.
- Make a DIY animal book by giving each printable animal outline its own page and having kids write the animal’s name or a fun fact underneath.
Farm Animals
These farm animal outlines are perfect for barnyard crafts, classroom activities, coloring pages, and simple animal templates. Kids can use these printable animal shapes to make farm scenes, practice their tracing, create cut-and-paste crafts, or decorate each animal with crayons, markers, cotton balls, yarn, and more.
Animal Outline – Cow
This cow shape is simple for tracing practice and coloring, but still has plenty of room to add classic cow details. Color black spots or brown patches, add a bell, or even draw a background pasture scene with grass and a barn.
Cow Outline Options:
Animal Outline – Pig
This pig shape has a rounded body, pointy ears, little legs, and a curly tail. Color the template pink, add a mud puddle backdrop, or glue on paper scraps for a playful mixed-media pig craft.
Pig Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Sheep
This sheep has a fluffy, cloud-like body that’s perfect for adding texture. Kids can color it in or glue cotton balls, white pom poms, yarn, or crumpled tissue paper over the body to make a soft woolly sheep. Check out our sheep puppet for a fun example!
Sheep Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Chicken
This chicken has a rounded body, tail feathers, comb, and beak, with lots of room to add fun feather details. Color it like a white hen, brown chicken, or a bright storybook bird, then draw a nest, eggs, or barnyard background.
Chicken Outline Options:
Animal Shapes – Goat
This goat has pointy horns, a little beard, and a playful farm animal shape. Kids can add fur texture, color it white, grey, brown, or tan, and draw a fence, hay, grass, or even a rocky hillside around it.
Goat Outline Options:
Animal Templates – Horse
This horse has a tall body, small ears, a long tail, and four legs. It’s the perfect animal outline for kids who love horses. Add a saddle, bridle, and horseshoes to the horse, or create a more detailed horse picture by drawing in a stable or grassy field.
Horse Outline Options:
Woodland Animals
These woodland animal outlines are perfect for forest crafts, nature activities, fall projects, and printable animal templates for kids. Use these simple animal shapes for coloring pages, tracing practice, cut-and-paste crafts, bulletin boards, or classroom lessons about forest animals.
Animal Outline – Raccoon
This raccoon definitely has a mischievous aura! It has a hunched, sneaking shape, with cute little ears and a long tail. Add the striped details to the tail and draw the mask-like face markings for a cute raccoon coloring page. Would you place this raccoon in the forest with plants and nature, or make it a little trash panda in a nighttime city scene?
Raccoon Outline Options:
Animal Outline – Owl
This perching owl has cute ear tufts, a rounded body, and long tail feathers. Kids can add big eyes, wings, and feather patterns to the owl. Then jazz up the background with a moon and stars, a branch for the owl to sit on, and a friendly forest backdrop.
Owl Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Bear
This walking bear shape has rounded ears, sturdy legs, and a simple outline that’s easy to trace and cut. Color it brown or black for a forest-themed craft, or turn it into a polar bear with an Arctic background of snow, mountains, and pine trees.
Bear Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Deer
This deer has long legs, tall ears, and a graceful standing pose. Kids can add spots to create a fawn craft, color it tan or brown, and draw grass, leaves, trees, or a quiet woodland scene around it.
Deer Outline Options:
Animal Shapes – Squirrel
This squirrel has a big curled tail, tiny paws, and a cute sitting shape. Kids can color it grey, brown, black, or red, and then add an acorn, leaves, tree branches, or a fall forest background.
Squirrel Outline Options:
Animal Templates – Fox
This fox has pointed ears, small paws, and a long bushy tail. Color it orange, red, grey, brown, or white, and then add a fluffy tail tip. What type of scene do you think this fox belongs in? You can draw it beneath tall trees, on fallen leaves, or even in its little den.
Fox Outline Options:
Ocean Animals
These ocean animal outlines are perfect for under-the-sea crafts, marine life lessons, coloring pages, and printable animal templates for kids. Use these simple sea animal shapes for classroom activities, ocean-themed bulletin boards, tracing practice, cut-and-paste projects, or creative summer crafts.
Animal Outline – Dolphin
This classic dolphin shape is shown leaping with a curved body, pointed nose, fins, and horizontal fluke tail. Add ocean waves, splashes, sunshine, or other sea animals to make it look like it’s jumping right out of the water.
Dolphin Outline Options:
Animal Outline – Octopus
This octopus has a rounded head and eight long curling arms that are fun to color and decorate. Kids can add suction cups to the arms, create a cute cartoon face, or draw a fun background filled with bubbles, seaweed, and coral.
Octopus Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Fish
This fish has a simple body with fins and tail, and there’s lots of space for colorful details. Kids can draw scales, stripes, or spots, or add fun rainbow colors by gluing on tissue paper or creating a pattern in glitter.
Fish Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Shark
This shark has a long body, pointed nose, fins, and a classic shark tail. Color it grey or blue-grey, add gills and teeth, or make it a funny rainbow shark swimming through waves, surrounded by tiny fish.
Shark Outline Options:
Animal Shapes – Jellyfish
This jellyfish has a rounded top and long wavy tentacles. Color it pink, purple, blue, or rainbow. Then make this jellyfish outline look like it’s floating through the ocean by adding bubbles, glittery currents, and a blue watery background.
Jellyfish Outline Options:
Animal Templates – Whale
This whale has a long curved body, small fins, and a simple fluke tail shape. Kids can color the whale shape blue, grey, black, or patterned like an orca. Then add ocean details like a water spout, bubbles, waves, or little fish.
Whale Outline Options:
Pets
These pet animal outlines are a fun way for kids to create crafts inspired by familiar animals they might see at home, in a classroom, or at a pet store. Use these printable animal templates for coloring pages, tracing practice, cut-and-paste projects, pet-themed lessons, or simple animal crafts.
Animal Outline – Cat
This sleek cat shape has pointy ears, curved legs, and a long tail that’s standing straight up. Kids can add whiskers, stripes, spots, or even a collar. Color it like your favorite book or movie cat, or draw in details to make it look like your own pet cat!
Cat Outline Options:
Animal Outline – Rabbit
This rabbit has long ears, a rounded body, and a small fluffy tail. Have fun coloring it white, grey, brown, black, or spotted. Then place it in a cute scene with a carrot, flowers, grass, or a little hutch in the background.
Rabbit Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Dog
This tall dog has pointy ears, a long tail, and a simple standing pose that’s easy to trace and cut. Add spots, patches, fur details, and a collar. Then make a cute pet-themed picture by drawing in a doghouse, a bone, or a grassy yard.
Dog Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Bird
This side profile bird outline shows a cute beak, rounded chest, long tail, and a tiny foot. Color this bird shape like a pet canary, parakeet, or lovebird, or make a songbird scene with a robin, sparrow, or nuthatch. Kids can draw in feather details and place the bird on a perch or nest, with the appropriate room or sky background.
Bird Outline Options:
Animal Shapes – Lizard
This lizard has a long body, curly tail, and little feet with fun toes. Kids can add scales, spots, stripes, or bright rainbow colors to personalize the lizard shape. Then turn it into a whole nature scene with rocks, sand, or a terrarium background.
Lizard Outline Options:
Animal Templates – Turtle
This turtle has a smooth shell and short little legs, making it a great shape for adding patterns. Kids can decorate the shell with a realistic geometric pattern, or turn it into a fun fantasy creature with stripes or dots. You can even use pieces of construction paper or craft foam to make a mosaic shell with bright colors!
Turtle Outline Options:
Zoo Animals
These zoo animal outlines are perfect for animal crafts, classroom activities, coloring pages, and printable templates for kids. This set includes some of the most popular zoo and safari-inspired animals, making it easy to create fun projects for preschool, kindergarten, homeschool, or any animal-themed unit.
Animal Outline – Monkey
This monkey has rounded ears, long limbs, and a curly tail. Color it brown, tan, or grey, then add vines, bananas, trees, or a rainforest background to make it look ready to swing away.
Monkey Outline Options:
Animal Outline – Elephant
This elephant has a large body, sturdy legs, and a curved trunk. Kids can add big ears and skin texture to the elephant shape. Then turn the outline into a fun jungle scene with with tall trees, long grasses, and water.
Elephant Outline Options:
Animal Outlines – Lion
This standing lion shape has strong legs, a long tail, and a fluffy mane. Kids can color this lion template golden yellow, brown, or orange. Then use crayons, markers, yarn, or paper strips to create a detailed mane!
Lion Outlines Options:
Animal Outlines – Hippo
This hippopotamus has a chonky body, short legs, and a rounded head. Color the hippo grey, purple-grey, or brown, then add water, reeds, mud, or bubbles for a river scene background.
Hippo Outline Options:
Animal Shapes – Giraffe
This classic giraffe shape has a long neck, tall legs, little horns, and a long tail. Kids can add brown spots, color the body yellow or tan, and draw trees or leaves for the giraffe to snack on.
Giraffe Outline Options:
Animal Templates – Rhino
This rhinoceros has a strong body, short legs, and a bold horn shape. Kids can color the rhino grey or brown, then add grass, mud, rocks, or a zoo background around it.
Rhino Outline Options:
Helpful Tips
- Read through the full tutorial before starting.
- Prepare the listed supplies ahead of time so each step is easier to follow.
- Check the finished craft against the instructions before displaying or using it.
FAQs
Is this tutorial beginner friendly?
Yes. This animal outlines crochet yarn craft is written with simple steps and extra tips for beginners.
Can kids make this craft independently?
Older kids may be able to work independently, while younger kids should have help with any steps that require close attention or small pieces.
How long does the craft take?
Most versions take about 30 minutes, depending on the materials and the pace of the crafter.
Can I use different colors?
Yes. Changing the colors is one of the easiest ways to personalize the finished craft.
Final Thoughts
Once the animal outlines crochet yarn craft is finished, take a moment to check the details, compare the result with the tutorial, and display the project somewhere kids can enjoy their work.
