All About Me

All About Me is a collection of ideas developed by the members of the First Grade Listserv. It includes the themes About Me, My Family, and My Friends.

• Read the book Mary Wore Her Red Dress over several days during shared reading. Send home a note requesting students to wear a favorite article of clothing to school the next day. Go around the circle noting what everyone is wearing. Take students pictures with a polaroid camera or with a digital camera, or you can have students draw themselves wearing their favorite clothing items. Create book pages in the style of Mary Wore Her Red Dress with the child's name and what they like to wear. For instance, Sarah wore her blue shoes all day long. Have the child make the picture on the page or attach the photos you took. Bind these into a book titled First Grade Wore Their Favorite Things.
  
• Another class book idea: Create a template for students to fill in about themselves: (________ is __________. _______ is _________ years old. ___________ likes the color ____________. ) Students fill in the blanks and then draw a picture of themselves at the top or, again, use an actual photograph. Bind into a book titled This is Room __________. This makes a very easy, repetitive book that the students can take home at night.

• Friendship Unit-put this on a worksheet or poster - one child illustrates on the left, other child on right

• Read the book The Napping House (Wood). In small groups determine how many sleep were in the Napping House. Don't forget to count those animals! For homework, have students figure out how many sleep feet in their napping houses. The next day at school, each child can draw a picture of his/her house with all the "napping feet" in it. Have the students write a sentence such as "10 feet sleep in my Napping House".

• Read The Important Book (Wise Brown). Students then fill in a sheet patterned about themselves patterned after the story (or they can dictate to the teacher.)

Students can illustrate these in a number of ways-drawing, cutting out large outlines of themselves, make silhouettes, or draw a picture in KidPix.

• All About Me Flipbooks: Create a simple six page flipbook for each student. The top page has the title "All About Me". The second-sixth pages lists things such as: This is my family; This is my best friend; This is my house, etc.. or students can write 5 facts about themselves, one fact per page. Using the This is my ____ format will help students learn the sightwords this, is, and my.
  
• Do a lesson on birthdays and include the book "Birthday Presents" by Cynthia Rylant.
  
• Learn the sight words I Can and read Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books. Have students create "I Can" booklets of things they can do themselves.
  
• Make houses using gumdrops and toothpicks.
  
• Get house fliers from the supermarket and have students cut out houses that look the same and different from their own house.
  
• For homework, make up a sheet that has children finding items in their houses, such as clocks, windows, etc.. Have a column on the paper where students can make their estimates and another column where they can record the actual number of objects.
  
• Have the students make "Me Sandwiches". Make tracers for bread,meat, cheese, tomato slice, and lettuce and provide construction paper inappropriate colors for each. The child's name and self-portrait go on the top bread slice; his/her family goes on the lettuce; favorite foods on the tomato (use magazine clippings to make collage.); "I am ____ years old. My birthday is _________." and a drawing on the cheese; "I am good at_______." with illustration on the meat; and "When I grow up, I want to be a(n) __________." on the bottom bread slice. Punch a hole in each and attach the "ingredients" with a brass fastener.
  
• Assign each person a week. The special person of the week will have a chart paper SPECIAL PERSON written about them and posted (favorites, etc). The special person will be invited to bring in items that are special to them and represent something about them. This could include family photograph, favorite stuffed animal, favorite toy, collection, etc. They will share these kind of like a show and tell. On Friday the parent is invited in to share the letter he/she/they write to their darling child...if they are unable to attend, they could do it by video...or send it in and the teacher will read it. A grandparent could also do the same. Each child will write (or draw) something they learned about the special person. You could have preprinted pages that say something like, "_____(child's name), the special thing I learned about you that I like the most was...." These pages can then be made into a special keepsake booklet, including the page from the parent (and possibly the teacher) and a page with measurements you took during the week like weight (touchy issue?), height, shoe size, etc.
  
• Another Name Idea - Using Kid Pix!
  The students type the letters of their name at the top of the screen with at least a finger space between each letter. Underneath each letter they try to find as many stamps that begin with that letter. eg.

(the words would be picture stamps). My kids always want to use the stamps so this is a great opportunity. I used the same ideas last week with shapes. They drew a box, rectangle, circle and triangle at the top of the screen with two finger spaces between each shape. Then they had to find stamps with the same shapes and the challenge was to see who could find theist in the time allotted. it was great!

• Create Time Capsules: Each student decorates a can or a shoebox. Students work with a partner to find out various things about each other-measure height with a string, trace shoe size, trace hand, write what some of their "favorites" are, draw a self-portrait, write 3 things they want to learn how to do before the year is over, etc.. These all go inside the time capsules and are stored away in a large box until the very end of the year. Make a big deal about closing up the big box so that it is a "big deal" for the students. At the end of the year do the same activities as you did early in the year. "Dig" up the time capsules and have students compare their previous items with the ones they have just done.
  
• When studying about ME you can make an "I CAN" can. Have each student bring in a Pringles can or something like that. Let them decorate the can with construction paper and write I CAN on it. Then as they learn a new skill they add this to their cans. They can write on small white papers and place in the cans. A slit could be cut in the lid. At the end of the year let them open their cans and see all the things that they have learned. It is amazing.
  
• Give each child a mirror, have them study themselves, and then draw self-portraits.
  
• Cut some plain paper into 5cm squares. Each child takes one square for each member of the family, and draws one person in each square. Give each child a strip of construction paper, make sure it is of sufficient length to accomodate the largest family. Each child pastes their squares on the strip, beginning at the bottom, one on top of the other, making sure they leave no gaps in between. The family name is printed on the top of each strip. When all the strips are mounted on a bulletin board, side by side, they provide a useful graph for comparisons and for discussions.
  
• The Baby Contest - The children bring a photo of themselves, taken before the age of 2 and give them secretly to the teacher. Arrange the photos on a bulletin board and number each one. The children guess who the baby in the photo has grown up to be.
  
• First Memories - The children draw and color themselves as a baby on cardboard. They then use a small piece of flannel cut with shears (so there are rippled edges) to fold around the baby as a pretend blanket. The baby's head is sticking out of the top of the blanket like a real baby.You can put a small gold pin on to hold the flannel closed or just glue. Glue the whole little wrapped up baby onto a large piece of plain paper. Have the children print "My First Memories" on the top for a title and all around the baby the children print some of their earliest memories or first words etc. from information collected from parents.
  
• Balloon Tree - Students write a description about themselves. Each child rolls up their own description and puts it in a balloon. Blow up the balloons and hang on a tree branch. Pop one balloon per day. Read the description. The class tries to "Guess Who?"

   

 Graphing Ideas:

• Graph how many people are in your family.
• Graph how many letters are in your name.
• Read The Napping House and graph who tucks you in at night.
• Graph your favorite food.
• Graph your favorite color.

• Have students bring in a family picture or, if a picture of the entire family isn't available, a few pictures that has family members in them. Have the children draw and color big construction trees, cut them out and glue the pictures onto the leaves. Write the children's names on the trunk and put them up on a bulletin board. This makes a great display for Open House!
  
• Read the book Best Friends by Steven Kellogg. Have students trace 2-4 stars on yellow paper. On one star the child draws a picture of himself. On the other star(s) he draws pictures of his friends. Write the names of each friend under the picture. Each child glues his/her stars on black construction paper. Draw glue squiggles around the stars and glitter. Staple onto a bulletin board titled "Room ______'s Best Friends".
  
• Here is a great way to integrate technology into your theme! Have students randomly draw a name of a class member. Each student write 2-3 sentences about what makes that person a good friend. On the computer in a drawing program, such as KidPix, the students creates a picture of the friend that he wrote about. The sentences can be typed using the Goodies/Type Text tools, or the printed picture can be pasted on a sheet of construction paper with the handwritten sentences underneath. Another favorite bulletin board that's meaningful!
  
• Have students write their names vertically on a piece of paper. Then they choose a word using each letter of their names that describes them. This is called an acrostic poem and is a great way to introduce poetry. Type it out on the computer and mount on construction paper. Mount all poems on a bulletin board covered with black construction paper.