Help your preschoolers make spiders this Halloween. Blow up a black balloon. Twist one end so that the balloon now has two bubbles; one big section for the body and one small section for the head. Secure with a string or rubber band. Now take four pipe cleaners, and twist them around the string, leaving equal parts of the pipe cleaner on each side. Bend them to look like eight legs. You can decorate the head by drawing a face with Wite-Out or other white correction fluid.
Pipe cleaners can make easy and fun Christmas decorations for your kids to take home. A simple class craft is to take three pipe cleaners, a red one, a pink one and a white one, and twist them together. Now bend them into the shape of a candy cane. Tie a fancy ribbon with a bell around the decoration for some extra festivity. You can also make a Christmas tree with pipe cleaners. Have your preschoolers slide beads onto a green pipe cleaner. These will act as ornaments. Then show them how to bend the pipe cleaner in a zigzag pattern, making each layer smaller as they get higher up until they reach the top of the tree. Bend the top and the bottom of the pipe cleaner at a tight angle so the beads can't fall off.
Preschoolers can make their own Valentine's Day cards from construction paper and pipe cleaners. Have the hearts precut from red, pink or white paper before they arrive in class. Use a hole puncher to make four holes on the sides of the heart, two on each side. Also have four smaller hearts with one hole punched for every big heart. Have the kids thread pipe cleaner through the holes to make arms and legs. Use the smaller hearts for hands and feet. Help them design the face for the heart, complete with googly eyes. Disney suggests using just one large googly eye for a Cyclops heart, and writing "I've got my eye on you!" as the Valentine's Day message.
These lady bugs will kick off a celebration of spring in your classroom. Cut out each individual egg holder from an old egg carton. Have your preschoolers color or paint them to look like ladybugs; black on the top half, and red on the bottom. Glue two googly eyes on the black section and glue several black felt circles on the red. Help them to poke through three black pipe cleaners from one side to the other and bend them into legs. Cut the pipe cleaner as needed. Use one of the smaller cut-off bits to run through the top of bug, near the eyes. These will be the antennas.