Beans and seeds can be used in a preschool art activity by painting a curriculum-specific coloring page with slightly watered-down glue and adhering various colors of seeds into each section. For example, when learning about farm animals, use mustard seed to color a horse's body and yellow corn kernels for its mane and tail. In a landscape scene, use fennel seeds to color the grass and treetops. Instead of creating with food, create pictures of food in a preschool art activity while learning about colors. Each child uses a stencil replicating a scoop of ice cream, traces it on a colored piece of construction paper, cuts it out and copies the color word onto it with a washable marker. Stack the class's ice cream scoops onto a teacher-made paper cone for a colorful bulletin board display.
With layers of hard-crayon coloring covered by a layer of black acrylic paint, preschool children can scratch their way to an artistic creation. Use a piece of poster board and instruct the children to color shapes and designs firmly with various colored crayons. The hues become visible when the black paint is scratched away from the paper with a wooden craft stick or the side of a pencil tip. Layer colorful paper shapes cut in triangles, squares, circles and rectangles onto piece of white construction paper creating a landscape design, such as a forest or a picture of their home. Adhere them with nontoxic, school glue.