Students and teachers can go outside to collect objects and oddities from nature. The teacher gives each student a small, brown paper bag with her name on it. Under close supervision of the teacher and teacher's aide, students can walk around in a protected recess area looking for interesting objects from nature. Ideal objects are pine cones, puffy seeds, fallen leaves and flowers, grass, bark, twigs and even the shell of an insect, if a student finds one and gives it to the teacher to protect. When students return to the classroom with their bag full of nature objects, they can lay out the material on poster board. With glue or clear tape, a child can assemble what he has collected on his poster board. The finished nature board should be a textured collage students can touch and question. Create a "nature corner" in the classroom to display the boards; children can check out their friends' art and, on parent-teacher night, show off the work in a gallery. The next time the toddler is outdoors with his parents or guardians, he will have an eye for the items he found in nature.
Like finger-painting, sponge-painting allows preschoolers to touch, smell and experiment -- but not taste -- with paint. Using sponges to create works of art is cleaner than finger-painting and lets students work on motor skills by holding and controlling the sponge in their hands to create shapes and impressions on paper. Teachers should cut sponges into shapes, such as rectangles, squares, stars, diamonds and circles. After setting easels up in the classroom -- or setting down paint-friendly paper or loose canvas on drawing tables -- teachers should ask students to choose a sponge shape. Once each student has a sponge, they can dip their sponges in open paint pots and squish them onto paper. The preschoolers feel the paint oozing in the fingers but also know they are controlling the shape and amount of paint with the sponge. Teachers can encourage students to try to make pictures of favorite animals or toys, or just dab and create art as they wish.
Gingerbread houses serve as sensory art models, since students can see, smell, taste and touch the ingredients for the house. They can also hear the candies in the bowl when they reach their fingers in to grab a chocolate dot for a doorknob or a gummy drop for a bush. Children can work in groups of four or five, depending on the size of the class, to develop listening, leadership and cooperation skills, as well as patience and creativity. Teachers should encourage students to concentrate on the sensual experience, asking questions like: "Can you describe the texture of chocolate?" Or, "What happens if we squeeze a lot of icing on the edge of the roof?" Preschoolers can take the treats to their homes if they work on them individually, or leave them in the room to admire if they worked in groups.
Preschoolers can make simple, folded books for an art project. Using five or six sheets of paper, fold each sheet in half so it makes 10 to 12 half-sheets. Teachers should help students punch holes into the creased binding with a hole puncher. Children can tie the booklet together with colored yarn. After binding the book, students can decorate the cover with glue and glitter and crayons, markers or paint. Inside, teachers can help students write a short story or poem or encourage them to draw pictures. Making the books as textured as possible -- with yarn, glitter and other odds and ends, like twigs or colored sand -- will make the books into successful sensory-art projects.