Reinforce letter-sound recognition and provide children with scissor skills practice with this transportation-themed art project. Write one large capital "C" and one large lowercase "c" in the center of a piece of paper. Review the sound the letter C makes, as well as the purpose of cars. Provide students with magazines and scissors. Instruct them to look through the magazines and cut out different kinds of cars. Once they've gathered a collection of car pictures, have them glue the images to the piece of paper, creating a collage of cars.
Review shapes and colors while having children create pictures of trains. Cut out four rectangles from red paper, four squares from black paper and four circles from blue paper. Have children identify the red rectangles and then glue them on the paper in a horizontal line -- these will be the cars of the train. Ask them to point out the four black squares and then have them glue them onto the rectangles -- these will be the train's windows. Last, ask them to tell you the name and color of the remaining shapes and instruct them to glue the circles to the bottom of the train cars to create wheels. Allow them to illustrate the rest of the picture with crayons.
Make a three-dimensional traffic light from a cardboard box. Cover the sides of a cardboard box with black construction paper. Cut out four red, four yellow and four green construction paper circles. Have children glue the circles to each side of the cardboard box in the order they are found on a traffic light -- red on top, yellow in the middle and green on the bottom. Use the completed project to review how a traffic light works.
Students will be delighted to see the word "Stop" magically appear with this stop sign art project. Precut the shape of a stop sign from white construction paper. Use a white wax crayon to print the word stop in the middle of the shape -- the word will not be able to be seen on the paper. Review the name of the shape with children and ask them what the shape reminds them of. Dilute red tempera paint with water, or provide children with red watercolor paint. Instruct them to paint the stop sign and as they do, the word "Stop" will magically appear.