This would make a nice start-of-term activity, or you could use it in a Learning mentor session or a Nurture Group to get to know your pupils.
Preparation: print out a large outline of a brain for each child, together with a patterned colouring-in page.
Explain they're going to fill their brains with words that describe what's important to them - family members and friends, special places, pets, foods, pastimes. They should aim not to leave many gaps, so if they run out of ideas they can put a word twice or even more. They could vary the size of the words to signify the relative importance or they could write the words in a variety of colours.
Then they stick the brain onto the patterned paper and colour in around it.
This was a very relaxing session that could have lasted over an hour but we ran out of time. The children are taking their work home to finish and I've asked them to bring them back next week to share (if they want to).
Preparation: print this image or make up an 'I am' poster of your own. Assemble glue, scissors, A3 paper or thin card, plain white paper and some off-cuts of wrapping paper. Alternatively, pages from old magazines could be used for the background patterns.
Delivery: Get the children to brainstorm all the things they are in different contexts/to different people. For example, who are they in a family sense? A son? A sister? A nephew? A granddaughter? Then ask them to think about all the skills they practise in school and what that makes them - a writer, a mathematician, a footballer, a gymnast, an artist, a cartographer, a scientist, a linguist etc. The next section should be about their personalities: are they curious? Calm? Energetic? Thoughtful? Hilarious? Finally ask for anything that hasn't been covered - nationality and heritage, for example. Stress the information should either be neutral/factual, or positive, nothing negative.
When they have their lists complete, ask them to consider what amazing individuals they are! (As I said to them, 'We all have bad days when we make mistakes and think we're rubbish. Stick this poster on your bedroom wall to remind yourself that you're absolutely not.')
Next, show them the 'I Am...' sheet and explain they are going to make one of their own. After that, the students really need very little direction, as long as they can see the example to use a template. My own group is currently half-way through this activity but we have a fifty minute slot only; another session will see it completed. So, unlike the other activities I post here, this is a two-hour job.
The 'I Am...' poster would make a nice start-of-term/ getting-to-know-you lesson for any class. As well as a writing club activity, this could also be something you could do in a Learning Mentor session to help build up a child's self-esteem.
