The traffic light applique can be made with children in classes in kindergarten or at home. To create a craft, you need to prepare materials (paper, cardboard, fabric, leather) for the base and the templates themselves.
It is worth worrying in advance about the method of securing the application. It can be threads or glue, depending on which option is chosen. The degree of difficulty of the work depends on the age of the child and his level of training. A traffic light applique can be made using almost any execution technique as a basis.
This article discusses ideas for making a traffic light using the most popular application methods and provides photo examples.
For preschoolers, practicing an application appropriate for their age will be very useful from the point of view of developing fine motor skills, spatial and figurative thinking, sensory perception, intellectual abilities, abilities for analysis and synthesis.
“Traffic light” applications for classes in the younger group
Photo master class “Traffic light”
For children in the younger group, you need to prepare in advance a traffic light template and circles of the appropriate diameter from green, red and yellow colored paper. It is better to choose the overlay applique method for beginners. With its help you can get an interesting and not complicated multi-color option.
Younger children will spend time with interest and benefit by simply gluing circles onto the base with their own hands, step by step. The lesson will reinforce their knowledge of the shape of a circle and a rectangle, as well as the corresponding shades, and will give them an understanding of the basics of composition.
Video: Application for kids
For the little ones
The materials for such a traffic light will be the simplest, depending on what you plan to make the traffic light from. It could be simple paper, yellow, red and green leaves of trees from the park, pieces of colored fabrics. Tools can also be thread and a needle, glue, cardboard, leather, etc.
We will be making paper appliqué for children in junior kindergarten groups, therefore, we will need the following items:
- a piece of cardboard;
- colored paper - green, yellow, red and black;
- glue.
For kids, it’s better to prepare in advance a template for the shape of the traffic light itself and the circles for its lights, so that it won’t be difficult for the children in the process of making the craft and the result will be exactly the option we had in mind.
The technique for performing such a craft is as simple as it sounds. You can simply stick the colored circles in the desired sequence onto the prepared cardboard. You can complicate the task slightly and cover a cardboard rectangle with black paper and attach circles on top of it to make the craft more realistic.
Application for middle and older children
In the middle group of kindergarten you can also conduct a lesson on appliqué and make a traffic light. But, a child of this age will find it interesting and easy to prepare stencils from colored paper. Having cut out the circles and rectangles themselves, the children will then glue them together step by step, according to the color arrangement scheme.
If the usual application in a group is already working well, then you can move on to more complex methods. For example, conduct classes on making a traffic light using modular or cut-out appliqué. Creating crafts based on them develops creative thinking especially well.
Modular applique involves the use of fairly small pieces of the selected material of the same size and shape. For the craft you will need pieces of three colors: yellow, red and green and a base. It is better to prepare them in advance, and also print out a drawing with the outline of a traffic light for each child, so that it is easier to stick a large number of blanks on its base.
Cut-out applique is an even more entertaining activity for children of middle preschool age. They can make the traffic light entirely themselves, but it’s still better to prepare pictures with its drawing.
To create a broken traffic light applique, you will need to tear colored paper of the four desired colors into fairly small parts, and then stick them according to the appropriate pattern.
Floral traffic light made of hearts
This will help you learn the colors and rules of the road and the kids will love it. The applique is also suitable for making in the middle group.
To work you will need:
- black cardboard - it will be used as a stencil;
- sheets of double-sided colored paper;
- glue stick;
- scissors;
- compass, ruler and simple pencil.
Step-by-step instruction:
- First, make heart blanks of different sizes - from yellow, red, green paper.
- Fold the cut pieces in half.
- Use a pencil, ruler and compass to draw three circles of the same diameter on the cardboard.
- Start making a traffic light. Let your child use his imagination and come up with a pattern himself. To lay it out, take glue and spread it on the heart halves. Then they are glued. Make a red signal first - don't forget to explain what it means.
- Make yellow and green signals in the same way.
- To diversify your work and get a craft like in the photo, create a frame from leftover colored paper. To do this, bend it in half and glue a few more hearts.
Lessons for the senior group
For children in the older group, you can complicate the traffic light applique, for example, by using symmetrical blanks of various shapes. The children must cut them out from colored cardboard or paper themselves. Or you can give each of the circles additional individuality by adding facial expressions.
The turning on and off of a traffic light signal can be indicated in various ways by drawing darkening bars, or instead of a “switched on” signal, use not a circle, but a star-shaped, radiant shape.
In older preschool age, modular or broken appliqué is much better. In such classes you can make many original traffic lights. Additional pictures with an auxiliary outline will no longer be needed; instead, it is better to use sheets of cardboard or plain paper.
Unusual traffic light applications are obtained by combining applique and origami techniques. To do this, some identical characters with different facial expressions must be specially made from red, yellow and green colored paper for gluing onto the base.
It is not necessary to make faces using the origami technique. If there are no step-by-step instructions or a detailed description process, you can prepare simple flat templates of faces for children, according to which they themselves will redraw and cut out the blanks, then adding the necessary features.
Unique crafts
Children of primary school and senior preschool age are already able to show their imagination and manual dexterity and create individual, unique crafts. In this case, you can use the following traffic light design techniques:
- quilling or twisting. This type of technique involves rolling up colorful strips of paper, in this case creating an original look for traffic signals. For many, this will seem difficult at first, but with the care and experience of a teacher or educator, any child can handle this technique.
Related article: How to make paper men for children: diagrams with video
- trimming. Twisting also takes place here, but the work is more painstaking. Thin strips of colored paper are wound onto a pen shaft and then glued onto the template. You will need as many rolled paper strips as possible so that when gluing there are no gaps between them.
Applications for older children
In the preparatory group of a kindergarten, you can successfully practice all the application methods described above and conduct more educational classes on the topic of traffic rules and existing types of traffic lights. Children at this age are able to work together to create amazing compositions, and not just individual works.
Twisting
A traffic light applique using the quilling technique, which is based on creating an image from paper rolled into ribbons, may seem like a craft too complicated for a preschooler. But, with detailed instructions and the sensitive attention of the teacher, you can get interesting and high-quality options.
Trimming
To diversify the process of preparing for school, you can conduct classes on creating an original traffic light applique using the cutting technique. This method involves winding a piece of paper onto a piece of rod, then the resulting shape is glued onto a base sheet, with or without an outline.
The presence of empty spaces is minimized and a multi-colored, three-dimensional image with an interesting texture is obtained. To apply a traffic light, you should prepare yellow, green and red colored paper.
Learning to cross the road
Children in the older group should know that traffic lights are at intersections and regulate traffic. But there is also a traffic light for a pedestrian crossing. And what does each color mean?
For preschoolers in the preparatory group, the process of creating such an unusual traffic light, as well as the preparations for it, will be incredibly exciting and entertaining.
For older preschoolers
For children 6-7, it is better to complicate the task so that the kids themselves cut out shapes for traffic lights from the proposed stencils and draw facial expressions on them. To interest them more, you can offer to draw the faces of emoticons or emojis, which are so popular nowadays, on the craft mugs.
Traffic signals can be decorated with various elements. To highlight a lit signal, the rest can be shaded in the form of a hash mark. Or, conversely, you can emphasize the desired color by gluing or drawing rays around it.
At older preschool age, you can already safely create trimmed appliqués. The applique also has a wonderful combination with origami. Traffic signals will look original in the form of figures created using folded sheets of multi-colored paper.
This combines 2 types of craft making techniques and increases children’s interest. An example of such a product is a traffic light made from cats.
