Explore Identity With Students
Many teachers choose to start the school year with an “All About Me” lesson because it helps us to get to know our students and helps children get to know one another. But All About Me can be a great lesson for any time of year because it supports children’s identity development as they reflect on who they are.
What matters to each child? What makes him or her special? What are his or her super skills?
Developing a strong sense of self helps children become confident and become more open to other people. You can help your students explore their identity through play, caring, and conversation.
A handmade “Book about Me” sounds simple, but it can be a powerful tool to help children understand, reflect on, and talk with confidence about their identity (and much more!).
This activity can be done over several days (or weeks), bit by bit until the books are ready. Consider having a class “publishing party” to share the books once they’re ready. For younger children, this can be a small group activity. Older children can work in small groups or independently.
Quick Tips for Educators
- Keep students’ All About Me books in a special place in your classroom for children to look through and share all year.
- Consider doing this activity twice in the school year — once in the fall and again in the spring to see how they’ve grown and changed.
- All About Me books also make a great memento to send home to families at the end of the year.
- Making books by hand, rather than printing out a template, reinforces literacy skills, boosts self-confidence, and teaches students that they don’t have to rely on others to get what they need — we can make things ourselves!
Materials
- White paper, crayons or markers, pictures of your students (from home or take in class)
Instructions
Select headings for each page, plan for 5-7 pages per book. Suggested headings:
- This is what I looked like when I was a baby.
- This is what I look like now.
- This what my hands/feet/hair/back look(s) like.
- This is my favorite toy at home.
- This is my favorite area of the classroom.
- This is my favorite color.
- I like to eat _______.
- I like to wear _______.
- I love ________.
Fold 2-3 sheets of paper into a book and staple. Create one book for each student. Glue each student’s picture to the cover and write their name across the top or allow space for students to write or trace their own names.
Working in small groups of 2 or 3 children at a time, fill in pages of each book. Depending on your students’ ages and abilities, you might:
- Ask a question for each heading. For example, “What is your favorite color? Can you find a crayon in that color? Draw with that crayon on this page that says, 'This is my favorite color.'"
- Glue photos sent from home or taken in class and have children draw around the pictures.
- Cut images from magazines and allow children to choose a picture for each page.
- Read the heading for each page out loud and fill in the blanks with children’s exact words. Encourage children to illustrate with markers or crayons.
Vocabulary
Instructions
Give students ideas for what to include on each page:
- This is what I looked like when I was a baby.
- This is what I look like now.
- Here is a self portrait that I drew.
- This is my family.
- This what my hands/feet/hair/back look(s) like.
- My favorite thing to do at home is _______.
- My favorite thing to do at school is ________.
- This is my favorite color __________.
- My favorite foods are ___________.
- I like to wear ______.
- I love _____.
- I am really good at _________.
- Here are three surprising things about me!
Ask students to write and draw on each page of the book, using one of the prompts or his/her own ideas.
- Students can glue photos into their books.
- Students can also cut images from magazines to include.
At the end, each student can create a cover with a title and his/her name.
Give students the option of sharing pages of their books with their classmates to help introduce themselves to their peers.
Vocabulary
Big Heart World has a coloring book version of this activity, which you can suggest to families as a take-home activity. Find it here.