With a few basic art materials, students can create family-themed puppets for dramatic play and a puppet show. Use pre-made family member templates to include infants, siblings, parents and grandparents or encourage children to draw family members that live in their home and color them. Each preschooler can cut out the picture and paste it onto card stock or any other type of thick paper. Trim around the art and paste to a wooden craft stick for children to create family stick puppets and put on a puppet show.
Preschool students benefit from play with sensory materials while developing fine motor skills. Many preschool students have younger siblings and have watched their parents care for the infants. In a sensory table or water table, allow students to soothe plastic baby dolls by rubbing baby oil, powder, lotion and baby wash onto them. With children who may be the youngest child in the family, this activity introduces another idea of family life.
Begin the lesson by instructing students to create a drawing of their home. Ask each to share their art pieces with the class by describing the dwelling's characteristics. Bring the children together in the gathering area of the room and discuss other possibilities of homes from around the world while showing pictures of each. The students can recreate the worldly homes with blocks or art supplies and state which country of the world it is from.
Preschool students can leaf through old home and cooking magazines to find pictures of their favorite foods. Make reference to any previous lessons that dealt with food groups and nutrition when the students create family dinner collages. Each preschool child cuts out pictures of foods that their family could have for dinner. After each student pastes them onto a piece of construction paper, ask each to reflect on whether their choices are healthy or junk food options, and whether they are appropriate to have for a family dinner.