Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day by helping your preschool kids decorate a class box of crayons to represent the many colors of people across the globe. Help the kids paint a large shoebox with rainbow stripes and then let it dry. Give each child a piece of cardstock paper shaped like a crayon. Cut out paper crayons that are about 3 inches wide and 5 inches long. Encourage the kids to color the crayons with people from around the world or decorate the crayons with objects that remind them of different cultures.
Encourage your students to embrace Native American culture by making a collage showcasing Indian symbols. Give each child cardstock paper and help them make and cut out symbols of a teepee, canoe, eagles, buffalo and other wild animals. Give the kids colorful feathers to glue on random places of the collage or around the border. You can also help them write down words for various Native American symbols and animals that the native people considered sacred such as the buffalo.
Many preschool-age kids enjoy participating in coloring projects. Print out culture coloring pages of countries, people and other cultural influences for them to color. (See the resources section to select pages to print.) The kids can cut out their pictures to add to collages or other craft projects or color just for fun.
Many preschool children don't know how to write yet, but they still love to express themselves with pictures. Help the kids make a cultural picture book showcasing cultures from around the world. Print out pictures online of Japanese, Mexican, Indian, African, Dutch and other cultures from around the world. You can find various pictures of cultural foods, garments, symbols and more on stock photo sites. Magazines such as "National Geographic" also have plenty of pictures from distant lands. Plan ahead for this craft to ensure you have enough pictures for the entire class.
Layer five or more sheets of cardstock paper together and use a hole punch to make holes in the left-hand side binding. Secure the pages in place with colorful yarn and give each child a book to begin decorating and putting together. Encourage the children to draw a cultural picture with crayons or colored pencils. Some kids might want to draw all sorts of people from around the world or pictures of cultural symbols. Help the kids cut out the images of their choosing and glue the images on the pages. They can dress up the borders of each page with Native American stamps, stickers and other cultural symbols.