All About Me: Eye Chart

"We are all special" is a message we want to send to young children. As the new preschool year begins or anytime throughout an Early Childhood Education curriculum, discussing what makes us unique and, yet the same, is a wonderful idea. Typically, we begin a Preschool year with an All About Me theme, and charting eye colors can be included into this topic.



Charting is an age appropriate math activity and there are many choices. Try:

Hair color: 

Where we live: 

Further Reading Suggestions:

Pet Preschool Lesson Plan 

Songs for All About Me Theme

All About Me Book 

Preschool Songs for All About Me Theme

All About Me is a great theme to include into a 3-5 year old curriculum. Commonly the theme is chosen to begin a preschool year, but focusing on the individuality of each child is a good topic any time of the year!

The following song includes actions:

Song #1  I am Special
(to the tune of Frere Jacques)

First ask the children to all stand up with their hands on their hips to sing:

I am special, I am special
You will see, you will see

Then turn around on the spot and sing

Someone very special, someone very special,

Ending with arms stretched right up in the air

Yes! It's me. Yes! It's me.

Song#2 This is the Way...To Keep Our Bodies Healthy
              (to the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)

Often an All About Me theme is overlapped with Health and Nutrition, and this a great song for such a topic. Including actions with the words makes the song more fun to sing for young children, and easier to learn.

This is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands
This is the way we wash our hands, to keep our bodies healthy.

This is the way we eat good food, eat good food, eat good food
This is the way we eat good food, to keep our bodies healthy.

Other verses:
This is the way we exercise
This is the way we go to sleep

Suggestion: Ask the children for ideas and include into the song!


Song #3  My Fingers are Starting to Wiggle
               (to the tune of The Bear Went Over the Mountain)

A great song to sing anytime at a circle time! Helps children identify body parts and participate with movement.

My fingers are starting to wiggle, my fingers are starting to wiggle, my fingers are starting to wiggle
Around around around.

(My hands, arms, head, are starting to wiggle, etc.)   My whole body's starting to wiggle,
My whole body's starting to wiggle,
My whole body's starting to wiggle,
I guess I'll just sit down.


Song #4 Shaker Shaker
              (any tune that works)

A good song for group participation and togetherness. To begin this song, find something that will shake and make some noise.


Shaker, shaker, (child's name)
Shake it like you can,
Shake it like a milkshake
And pass it to your friend.


Further reading suggestion : All About Me Book

                                         

All About Me Preschool Book

A great way to learn about the children at the beginning of a preschool year, as well as making each child feel comfortable and welcomed is to make a book titled: All About Me. Some teachers prefer to work on this memory type book throughout the preschool year. This article suggests pages to work on for a week or two at the beginning of the preschool year, to then present to the parents as the first art project. The parents will be happy to receive such a gift from their children and in so doing; it starts the preschool year off with a good start.

Creating the Pages for Preschool

Many of the pages for an All About Me book can be found online and then printed off, or the pages can be created by the preschool teacher first with the original pages being saved in a curriculum folder for future use. If the pages have all the printing down ahead of time, then it will reduce the work for the teacher as he/she will simply photo copy the required amount of pages needed. A good idea is to finish one page per class as the teacher will be required to fill in the answers of the children or other details with each page, which requires allocated time. The parents love reading the answers that come out of their child's mouth which is an important feature of the entire project.

"Look How Big I Am!": A Page Recording Preschool Children's Height and Weight

To begin the book, record the weight and height of each child on a page title, "Look How Big I Am!" This page can have a picture of a girl or boy which can be coloured in. Alternatively, older preschool children can be left a space to draw a picture. Perhaps, the teacher might chose to place in a photograph of the child instead which could be taken at school or provided by the families. Another page under this category can be titled, "When I Get Older, I Want to Be....". On this page, a preschooler will have his/her foot or hand traced (or both) and then the answer to the title can be filled in by the teacher. Similarly, a child's handprint can be made by being dipped into paint.

All About Me: The Question and Answer Page

This page can be altered to meet the requirements of the teacher's curriculum and philosophy. Sometimes this page is titled, "My Favourite Things". There will be a number of questions to ask the children and the answers will be written out. Some classic questions to ask are:

• My favourite color is...
• One of my favourite TV shows is...
• I like to eat...
• I don't like to eat...
• One of my favourite toys is...
• I am special because...

Me and My Family

One suggestion for this page is to provide each child with the basic tracing of a house made out of popsicle sticks, which the children can then glue on themselves. They can color or decorate the sticks before hand. The page can be titled, "In My Home You Will Find..."

Magazine Collage Page

This page can be a glueing activity for the preschool children to find things they like in an array of pictures cut out of magazines, and/ or pictures found off the computer. The latter choice works well for there are no pictures found on the other side as with magazines. The collage page can be fun to make and many parents will smile when they see what their child chose to glue onto the page.

The Completed Project

There are many more pages that can be placed into the book, and as stated before, this might be a book that a teacher chooses to work on throughout the preschool year. Finish the book off with a cover providing the title of the book, preschool it was made in, child's name, and the year it was completed. The parents will be happy to have this memento to keep in their collection of memories.


TO DOWNLOAD PAGES, VISIT: My Pinterest Page
                                                           
                                                             



Further reading suggestion: All About Me Songs

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas