Spread out a three-foot or long piece of newsprint on an easy-to-clean floor or concrete area for each child. Provide shallow pans of different colors of paint. Have plenty of paper towels and a basin of water ready to wash preschoolers' feet. Help each child dip a foot into paint, and then press his footprint onto the newsprint. Do this several times, making the footprints vertical and horizontal and in gray, brown, yellow and white colors. Let preschoolers decide whether to finish each print as an animal's head or a whole body. Have the kids use paint brushes to add zebra stripes, giraffe spots, lion manes, rhino horns and eyes, ears and tails to their animals. Label each animal as the children dictate, if desired.
Have preschoolers each paint a ping pong ball with tan paint. After the paint dries, help the children glue on craft eyes, foam ears and four pieces of yarn to represent arms and legs. Push one end of a brown chenille stem through the back portion of the monkey for a tail. Use craft tape or a cool glue gun to fasten the tail securely to the ball. Twist the other end of the chenille stem into a circle. Show the preschoolers how to slip the circle over a finger and twirl their finger to make the monkey swing or spin around.
Give each preschooler a shallow aluminum pan. Mix white and chocolate frosting to make a tan color. Have the kids spread the sand-colored frosting on the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle white or brown sugar lightly over the frosting. Place animal cookies and gummy animals in the "sand." The kids can also add clean jeep toys and adventurers to their scene, if desired. Send the safari scenes home or display in the classroom for a few days while studying about safaris or jungles.
Encourage preschoolers to use their small motor skills to create a lace-and-twist lion's face. Before class, use a hole punch to make holes around the edges of a paper plate, about one inch apart. Have the kids use crayons to draw eyes, nose and mouth on the center of the plate. Provide lots of chenille stems cut in half. The stems can be one shade of brown or also tan, orange and yellow. Have preschoolers push one stem piece about half through a hole in a paper plate. They should twist the stem together to look like hairs in the lion's mane. The kids may make one twist to hold each stem in place or twist several times if they wish. They may also curl the last loose inch of a stem around their finger to make a lion with a curly mane.