Preschoolers will love making their own stick horse to ride. There are a couple different ways to make a stick horse. The first method involves using a lunch-size paper bag and filling it with newspaper, inserting a wooden stick and tying the bag at the end to secure the stick in place. Once the horse is assembled, decorate the paper bag with triangle horse ears, a black nose and paper eyes. The second method entails more work for the teacher or parent. Instead of a paper bag, create a horse head with felt like the one described on the Celebration Shoppe website. Cut out two identical pieces and glue or sew them together. Cut out a felt mane, eyes, ears and a nose which children can glue to the horse head. Stuff the horse's head with batting and insert a wooden stick or plastic dowel. Make sure to cover the stick with glue before inserting it so it stays in place.
Cook up a cow pie cookie recipe with your preschoolers to incorporate measuring, pouring and other kitchen skills as you create a yummy treat. Cook up your favorite no-bake cookie recipe, spooning the mixture onto foil to cool. These cookies usually contain butter, sugar, peanut butter and oatmeal, among other ingredients. To make them look more like cow pies, you can add ingredients like coconut and dried berries. You can also turn a traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe into cow pies by adding cocoa powder to the dough mixture in order to give the dough a brown appearance.
Preschoolers can make their own cactus plants, similar to the ones cowboys and cowgirls see in the desert, with cucumbers and dry spaghetti noodles. The Busy Bee Kids Crafts website says to cut one end off of cucumbers to make them varying lengths and insert small pieces of dry spaghetti noodles around the outside of the cucumbers to create the cactus spines. Set the cucumbers cut-side down on a plate (glue them in place, if desired). Sprinkle crushed graham crackers on the plate for the look of sand or use real sand.
Make sure your students dress the part of cowboys and cowgirls by helping them create Western wear. Create a cowboy or cowgirl vest using recycled paper grocery bags. Cut the bag down the center starting at the top of the bag all the way down to the bottom of the bag. Cut out a neck at the bottom of the bag and two holes on each side of the bag for arm holes. Cut fringe, if desired, and allow the children to decorate their vests as they like.
Sing cowboy and Western-themed songs such as "Home on the Range" and "On Top of Old Smoky"; teach a western-themed dance like square dancing and play "Pin the tail on the horse" or have a lasso competition with hula hoops. You can also play "Needle in a haystack" by hiding candy in piles of hay for the children to find.