You can teach your kids a lot about animals by allowing them to keep animals overnight, like insects or tide pool dwellers.

When I was a child I collected frog eggs in the spring and watched them hatch and eventually turn into miniature frogs. I let them go then, but I learned more about nature from that experience than any amount of book learning about the changes from tadpole to adult frog.

Depending on where you live, you can learn about the animals in your vicinity then make a little “vacation home” for them. There’s no better way for a child to learn about nature than up close and personal!