Ask parents to save baby food jars and bring them to class if they have other small children at home. Collect the jars over the period of a couple of weeks or months to give parents enough time to bring them in. Have children decorate the jars with stickers, glitter, permanent marker or whatever other colorful craft items you have. Avoid using hot glue for this activity as it can burn children. Have parents come in to school for a parent celebration day. Children could learn a song and sing it for parents while votive candles in the jars they decorated are lit behind them with the lights out in the room.
Fill the bottom of a glass fluted ivy bowl with potpourri. Choose a variety of scents for your preschoolers to use. Put a votive candle in a glass container and put on top of the potpourri. The heat from the lighted candle can accentuate the smell of the potpourri when it is lit. This can be a gift for any time of year for anyone.
Cut small pieces off of various types of scented candles. The candles should be of different colors as well. Have your children fill a small, round, glass bowl with different scents and colors of candles they like. Then insert a votive candle in a glass container. One idea to enhance the candle gift is to have each child in the classroom add a piece of a story to a story starter you give them about the candle. Each child's contribution should be added as a printed story attached to the candle gift.
Teach your children about rhyming words. Help them come up with a list of words rhyming with "light." The list might include "night," "might," "sight" or "flight." Each child in the class then comes up with a sentence using one of the rhyming words. Arrange the words into a poem. Though it may not make any sense, parents will enjoy reading it and laugh. Have students decorate a picture of a candle and print the poem onto the sheets they decorate. Students might also decorate a toilet paper or paper towel roll and attach a yellow or orange construction paper "flame" to it to simulate a lighted candle. Glue the poem to the outside of the roll.