Preschool Children - All About Me

All About Me

Preschool children are just starting to form opinions about themselves and their own identity within the world. For many children, preschool is one of the first socializing experiences outside the home, so it gives them a chance to learn how to relate to other children and how to be themselves. A great theme for allowing preschool children to explore their sense of self is "all about me", which integrates these activities and crafts.

The "all about me" theme is an excellent way to start of the preschool curriculum, since it will give the children a chance to get to know each other a little bit before jumping into the school year.

One way to begin to explore the self is by allowing preschool children to recreate themselves in puppet form out of a paper bag. Let each child decorate their puppet with crayons, markers, construction paper cut outs, yarn for hair, and whatever else they see fit.

If time permits, the children can create clothes for their puppets from fabric or construction paper. After each puppet is completed, take them one at a time and try to see if the class can guess who each puppet is meant to represent.

Fun with Silhouettes

Here's another fun way to celebrate the "all about me" theme: making silhouettes. This craft requires a bright light, a projector, paper, and a pencil. To begin, use the bright light or projector to form the silhouette of the child on the wall. Tape a piece of paper to the wall and trace the child's outline with a pencil.

Next, cut out the silhouette and use it as a stencil to cut another shape from black paper. Glue the black paper silhouette to a large piece of white paper, and let the children decorate the frame to their silhouette face with pictures of their favorite things and colors.

In this craft, children will create a placemat that can be used at snack time for the remainder of the year. To begin, give each child a piece of white paper. Next, have them dip their hand in their favorite color of paint and place a handprint on the center of the paper.

After washing the paint from their hand, the children can decorate the placemats to their desire with stickers, markets, paint, crayons, or anything else found in the craft supply room. Some children might even want to practice writing their name at the top. Once the placemats are completed, tape a small picture of each child somewhere on the placemat, and laminate the placemats.

The Me Collage

Finally, here's a fun craft for preschool children to identify their likes to form a collage. To begin, have the children lay down on a large piece of white paper and trace their outlines. Cut out the outline of the child, and have each child draw and decorate their face.

Next, have the children go through old magazines or books to find pictures of the things that they like to decorate their collages. You can paste images to the neck until you are satisfied with their collage. After each child is completed, the collagen can be set by hand in hand along the wall for a nice effect.