Use paper dolls to teach preschoolers about what to wear in cold weather. Ahead of time, draw and cut out several clothing shapes of colored construction paper. Include winter and summer clothes. Alternatively, find clothing templates online and print them out on colored paper. Include coats, boots and hats, as well as shorts, swimsuits and sandals. Give each student a paper cutout of a person and talk about what is needed to stay warm in winter. Then ask the students to choose paper clothing cutouts appropriate for winter and glue them to their people cutouts. Put a different spin on the activity by having students lie down on large pieces of white paper and tracing around them. Cut out the life-size paper dolls and ask preschoolers to draw winter clothes onto themselves using crayons or markers.
Gather a collection of clothing, including winter and summer options. Arrange the items in your whole group circle area and ask children, one at a time, to point out an item they might wear in winter. Make a pile of these items, and after they've all been identified, hold each one up and ask students to share why they are good choices for cold weather. For example, a student might say that mittens keep hands warm when making snowballs. Do a similar lesson with images of winter and summer clothes cut from magazines. Cut out enough for students to have four or five pictures of winter clothes each, as well as two or three pictures of summer clothes. Ask students to choose several examples of winter clothes and glue them to a piece of paper to make a winter clothes collage.
Set up your dramatic play area with winter clothes such as coats, hats, mittens, gloves, boots and snow pants. Encourage the children to dress in the items, which will give the children practice zipping up a coat or pulling on a pair of snow boots. Give the preschoolers something to do while they're dressed for the winter by providing a bucket of cotton balls for a safe indoor snowball fight, suggests Tracy Edmunds, author of "Preschool Activities: Explorations, Circles, Centers." If you have enough dress-up items, have all the children dress up. Then have them form a circle, each holding onto the edge of a white sheet. Spread the children out so the sheet is flat and then dump cotton balls in the middle. On your mark, students shake the sheet as hard as they can to make a "blizzard." Talk about why they would wear their winter gear if there was a real snowstorm.
Tell students that you have a pretend vacation planned for them, but that they need to pack before you head out. Inform students that you'll be visiting the North Pole, and that the temperature there is very cold. Give students a construction paper cutout of a suitcase and age-appropriate magazines. Ask the preschoolers to flip through the magazines to find pictures of clothes they will need to pack to take with them, such as a coat and a scarf. Help the students cut out the pictures and glue them to their suitcases. If you don't have enough magazines, preschoolers can draw winter clothes directly on their suitcase cutouts. Invite students to share their finished suitcases with the rest of the class.