Provide each preschooler with an empty paper towel roll to serve as the cotton candy handle. Encourage children to paint the paper towel roll with white tempura paint. Create cotton candy by stretching out several pink or pastel blue cotton balls. Help preschoolers glue the cotton balls to the cotton candy handle once the handle dries completely.
Foster math skills in preschoolers with a cotton candy counting and numbers recognition activity. Create cotton candy cones by cutting out 10 triangles from construction paper. Write the numbers 1 through 10 on the paper triangles. Cut out 10 circles from pink or pastel blue colored construction paper to represent cotton candy. Use a marker to draw dots from 1 through 10 on the cotton candy. Encourage preschoolers to count the dots on the cotton candy and match the cotton candy to the corresponding cotton candy cone.
A trip to the circus is not complete without cotton candy. Encourage children to build a circus in the block center. Set out a prop box full of stuffed and plastic circus animals and circus costumes. Set out paper popcorn boxes, along with plastic hotdogs, pretzels and peanuts. Set up a cotton candy machine and let the children take turns helping you make cotton candy in a variety of colors.
Play a game of "Pin the Cotton Candy on the Cone" with preschoolers. It is similar to the "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" game, except it is played using a cotton candy theme. Draw a large cotton candy cone on poster board. Hang the poster on the wall at the eye level of the preschoolers. Cut out large cotton candy shapes from construction paper for each child, and place double-sided tape on the back of each shape. One at a time, blindfold each preschooler and encourage him to walk toward the poster to stick the cotton candy on the cone. The child who pins his cotton candy closest to top of the cone wins.