Celebrate the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa by creating a hat with your preschoolers. Measure the circumference of each child's head and cut a 2 1/2-inch wide strip of green construction paper or foam. Ensure that the strip is approximately 2 inches longer than the measurement to make room for a head band. Glue the ends together with craft glue and secure it with a clothespin until the band is dry. Cut two black strips and two red strips that are 1 1/2-inch wide and 12 inches long. If looking at the green strip's circular band as a clock, glue one end of one red strip on the inside of the green band at 12 o'clock, one black strip at 1:30, another red strip at 3 o'clock and the fourth black strip at 4:30. Stretch and glue the free end of each strip directly across from the original glued end, crossing them at the hat's top. Secure each glued end with a clothespin until dry. Decorate the hat with paper or foam shapes across the band.
Open a paper lunch sack and roll the opening down, leaving approximately 4 inches of bag unfolded. The fold will form the outer brim of the hat. Glue strands of black yarn onto the inside of the hat about 3/4s of the way along the brim for hair. Color the brown paper sack with red, yellow, green and black markers then glue a black construction paper strip over the hat's brim to create a traditional Kufi hat.
Glue red, green and black strips of felt together to form a 12- by 12-inch square. After the glue has dried, cut a 2- by 2-inch square out of each corner until the large square looks like a "plus" sign or a cross. Turn the felt plus sign over on your work surface and fold up each flap to connect each edge, forming a felt basket. Glue each edge together and allow them to dry with a spring-loaded clothespin securing them. When completely dry, glue a band of black felt around the outside of the entire hat as its brim. When the hat is dry, it is ready to wear. A hot-glue gun is a more immediate form of gluing but may not be safe for preschool students.
Download or photocopy a map of Africa and give each child a map to color. Pass out coloring pictures of animals typically found in Africa, such as lions, elephants, zebras and snakes, and have the children color, cut and paste the pictures onto their African maps. Cut our 3/4 of the inside circular section of a paper plate and fold the circular flap up to look like a front-facing top hat. Glue the colored map with the African animals onto the raised flap. The ribbed paper plate circle can be worn as a hat and the raised circular portion as the decorative top hat feature displaying African characteristics. The children can color each stripe on the rigid brim of the paper plate hat in a red, yellow, green and black pattern.