Help pre-K students learn about different fruits and the characteristics that make them different by creating paper plate fruits. Children can learn about the different fruits' physical and inside features. Have a plate of fruits on display, and hand children round paper plates, as well as paper plates cut in half for sliced fruits. Create different fruits, such as watermelon, orange, kiwi and apple, by coloring in the paper plate with crayons or paint based on what they see on display.
Use old wine bottle corks, and turn them into circle stamps for pre-K students. Dab the end of the cork with paint, and press it onto construction paper to create circles. Learn about other shapes, such as squares and triangles, by stamping the corner angles and using a paintbrush to draw the lines between the circles for an outline of the shapes.
Learn about the different colors on the color wheel by cutting colored construction paper into 1-inch-wide strips and creating a paper chain with them. Show pre-K students the order of the colors on the color wheel, and have them follow that order to create a paper chain. Students will glue together the ends of a red construction paper strip. Then, use an orange strip of construction paper, loop it into the red chain, and connect the ends of the orange strip together with glue. Continue with the other colors in the order of the color wheel to make a longer chain. This can also be a craft for children to work together on by combining everyone's paper chain together.
Use paper plates to create different animal faces, such as a lion, pig or frog. Cut out colored felt into circles that are the size of the center of the plate. You will need a yellow circle for a lion, pink for a pig and green for a frog. Also, cut out different shapes out of felt for the nose and mouth. Pre-K students can apply glue to the felt cutouts to stick to the paper plate and add on sticker googly eyes. Use crayon to color in the rim of the paper plate or to draw the ears for the pig or hair for the lion. Alternately, cut strips into the rim of a paper plate to look like a lion's mane.