Kitten Care Games

Children can learn to care for a pet cat by playing games.boy cuddling his pet kitten image by Stepanov from Fotolia.com

Caring for a kitten is a time-consuming job for a while. Aside from getting a kitten regular shots and veterinary care, there are three areas of care that are essential to a happy and healthy kitten: food and water, a clean litter box and items to use for play. Teaching children to care for a kitten through games will help get them be ready for the responsibility that comes with having a pet.

Finding Kitten Toys

Kitten’s are playful and love to scratch, catch, chew and chase things. One way to teach children what things around the house are appropriate for kittens to play with is to play the Finding Kitten Toys game. This game requires giving each child two grocery sack: one for things kittens can play with and the other for things they shouldn’t. To begin the game, explain they are to put things a kitten can play with in one sack and things not to be play with in the other. Set a time limit for the hunt. When this is up, see what has been collected. Talk about each item and whether or not it is in the right sack. The child with the most correct items wins.

Kittens can be finicky eaters. They tend to want to eat in small increments over the entire day. Helping children resist the urge to feed them people food is an appropriate lesson to learn by playing the game Feeding the Kitten. Collect pictures of different kinds of kitten and people food. Glue them onto 3-by-5 cards. Start the game explaining how people food is not good for kittens because it does not have the nutrients a kitten needs to grow strong and healthy. Spread the cards out face-up on a table and let each child take a turn picking a card and telling if it is good for a kitten or not so good. If they are correct, they keep the card. The child with the most cards wins.

The Clean the Litter Box game is for children who are mature enough to be safe when cleaning a litter box. The game is about keeping track of how well a child cleans the litter box. Ask each child to make a Clean the Litter Box chart to record successful cleanings. Talk to the children about the steps of the process while you show them how to clean a litter box. Assign litter box days to each child. When a child has cleaned the litter box, check how they did. The child adds a sticker to their chart if she was successful. At the end of the month, the child with the most stickers wins.