Expose children to different shapes while making a school bus craft. Provide kids with a pre-cut yellow rectangle, two black circles and five black squares. If you're working with second-year preschool students who possess scissor skills, draw the shapes on paper and help them cut out the shapes. Instruct kids to place the yellow rectangle in a vertical position. Show them how to glue the circles on the bottom of the rectangle for wheels and the squares to the top of the rectangle for windows. Write each child's name in the center of the bus and hang them on a bulletin board display.
Create life-sized replicas of each of your students for an All About Me project. Have each child lay down on butcher paper and trace around their bodies. Cut out the image for them to ensure a neat cutting job. Lay the cut-outs on the floor and provide children with crayons and markers to illustrate themselves; offer guidance by telling them to make hair and clothing, but to leave the faces blank. Take a close-up picture of each child's face. Blow up the photos and print them out. Have children glue their faces to the life-sized images. Hang the pictures around your room. Allow students to share their work and something about themselves.
Apples are synonymous with the start of school, and you can have your students use the fruit to make paintings. Cut apples in halves, thirds and quarters. Fill paper plates with a shallow layer of paint and place the fleshy part of the apple pieces in the paint. Provide children with a piece of paper and allow them to make pictures by pressing the apples onto their paper.
This art project provides kids with fine motor skill development. Draw schoolhouse shapes on pieces of poster board and cut them out. Provide children with red and black construction paper and instruct them to tear the paper into small pieces and place the pieces in neat piles on a table. Then, they should glue the pieces of torn paper onto the schoolhouse shapes to give them color.