A great way to illustrate what a triangle is for preschool children is to use triangle-shaped sandwiches as the medium for their art project. Teachers (or parents) can make a child's favorite sandwich and then cut it into triangles using a knife. Then, preschool kids can take pictures of their triangle sandwiches using a digital camera or children's camera. Pictures of the sandwich triangles can be cut up with age-appropriate, blunt scissors and arranged on a large poster.
The teacher can specify how to arrange the triangles. For example, preschoolers can arrange triangle sandwich pictures on a poster board or bulletin board to look like a beautiful buffet display. Or they can arrange triangles to make larger triangles, rectangles or squares. Preschoolers can also use triangles to form butterflies, flowers or fish in a sea.
Mosaic kits will contain many triangle-shaped tiles and children can use these in a beautiful preschool mosaic art project. If tiles are too expensive or not readily accessible for the preschool classroom, teachers can substitute small construction paper triangles. Create a particular pattern or plan for what the mosaic will look like, if desired.
A great idea is to create a mosaic pattern for the first letter of each student's name. The children can then glue their triangle tiles or paper to the large letter for a great art project to take home for the refrigerator. Students can also work in groups to create a bigger mosaic, such as a flag, animal or holiday-related theme.
Making snowflakes are a great way to spend arts and crafts time with preschoolers. Children can use blunt scissors to create some great snowflake patterns out of simple white paper. Hang their creations in the schoolroom windows. To incorporate the use of triangles, try making their snowflakes with triangle-shaped paper instead of circles.
Fold the triangle in half at least twice and have children cut off a corner or two. Some children might be very adept at using their scissors and make more cuts in their snowflakes. Use silver or light blue glitter to further decorate the triangle snowflakes before displaying them in the classroom.
Children will love making pinwheel pictures with triangles of different colors. Kids can create their own color patterns with pre-cut construction paper triangles. Have preschool students select several (six to eight) triangles of different colors and then glue them into a pinwheel shape onto large, sturdy poster board.
Teachers can use this triangle art project as a lesson in color as well as triangles. Kids can use alternating primary colors, complimentary colors or even the colors of the rainbow for their pinwheel projects.
To take this project a step further, the pinwheel triangles can be made out of sturdier paper, and fastened to firm poster board or cardboard using a brass fastener (that the teacher or adult supervisor would help install). Then the children will be able to spin their finished triangle pinwheels.