Have preschoolers use safety scissors to cut out a bookmark-size rectangle from black construction paper. You can use another bookmark as a guide, creating a template for students. Cut out small yellow, green and red circles from construction paper and have students glue them onto their black book mark. Then write the words "stop," "slow down" and "go" on the appropriate colors.
Give each preschooler a graham cracker. Then have them spread a small amount of cream cheese or vanilla frosting on the cracker. Each child gets one red, yellow and green colored chocolate candy to set up as a traffic light on the graham cracker. Explain what each of the colors means and then dig in and enjoy the edible art.
Talk about traffic lights, what the different colors mean and why they are so important. Then tell the preschoolers that they are going to make their own traffic light. Give each student a shoebox (they can bring in their own from home) and have them paint the whole box black. Let the box dry and then have students cut large circles from red, yellow and green construction paper. Have them glue on the circles to their boxes in the correct order. This is a good time to review the concept of top, middle and bottom: the red circle goes on the top, the yellow one goes in the middle and the green one goes on the bottom. Stand the "traffic light" up to make it appear more realistic.
Cut out a rectangle shape from yellow poster board. Then cut out a slightly smaller rectangle from black poster board and glue them together. Put some red, yellow and green poster paint onto separate paper plates. Cut apples for stamping in half (have a green, yellow and red apple). Place each apple half on the corresponding color plate. Have the preschoolers load up the apple stamp with paint and then make a traffic light by stamping the appropriate colors onto the black side of the rectangles.