This activity involves two parts: painting and gluing. Give each student a handful of cotton balls and help the children to dip them into bowls of brown paint. Place the painted cotton balls on a pre-cut paper plate half. Next, provide students with yellow and orange paint, paint brushes and paper plates. Instruct the children to paint their plates with either yellow or orange or both. Allow the painted plates and painted cotton balls to dry for at least three hours before starting the next part of the project. Give each student two pre-cut eyes or googly eyes, a pink or black circle for the nose, and the brown cotton balls. Allow them to glue a face onto their painted paper plates using the cotton balls for a mane.
Many preschool-age books enchant children with animals not commonly seen outside of a zoo such as lions and tigers. Check the library for fiction and nonfiction books on lions and tigers. Some popular children's books include: "Tigers Roar" by Pam Scheunemann, "Christian the Lion" by Anthony Bourke, "The Lion and the Mouse" by Jerry Pinkney and "I Am a Little Tiger" by Francois Crozat. Many of these stories would be excellent selections to read to children before they participate in a related lions or tigers project, such as arts and crafts.
Cut out black stripes in different shapes and sizes, but make sure the stripes aren't longer than the width of a lunch-size paper bag. Cut out a variety of ear shapes (some pointy and some curvy), as well as white circles and black dots for eyes. Allow students to color the paper bags with orange markers or crayons. Have the students glue on black stripes, two ears and two eyes to their bags. Older children can cut out their own shapes. Demonstrate how to use the puppet while students are gathered in a learning circle with their puppets.
Singing and finger plays are great to help preschool children develop new vocabulary words. Children can sing songs or listen to songs while imitating behaviors of lions and tigers. "Leo the Lazy Lion" is a great song for learning the "L" sound. It has lots of repetition and is good for pre-kindergarten age groups. "I Am a Big Lion" is a song for younger preschool children that encourages children to walk around and pretend to be sneaky lions.