Mm Me, Myself, My Body
Letter: Mm
Number: 13
Learn About: Same - Different
What makes us grow, what makes us function, what is inside our body. Children will learn about feelings, emotions, manners, self esteem, all the things that make them an individual. They will make a ME book that lets them tell about their favorite food,
hobby, color, friend, etc., and an I’m Special Wheel. They will do a Who I Am Now And Who Or What I Want To Be Someday activity. The children will learn their body is their body and they have the right to say no in situations that make them feel
uncomfortable. Coloring pages are included as well as worksheets and patterns.
Letter and Number Activities:
Using the provided letter M outline and do one of the following:
Use an ink pad and print your fingerprints in the letter outline, write underneath My fingerprints Every person has their own set of fingerprints, no two are alike. Compare each others prints to see how they are different.
Paste a photo of the child’s face in, on or beside the outline.
Paint the inside of the child’s hand with a thin layer of paint and press on the outline, write underneath it, My handprint. Or do same with their foot.
Using the provided number 13 outline do one of the following:
Print the number 13 inside the number outline.
Paste 13 stickers of faces in the number outline.
Draw 13 happy faces in the number outline.
Draw 3 happy faces and three sad faces in the outline, for a same and different activity.
Same and Different Activity
Use the provided activity sheets for same and different activities.
If you have more than one child in the group have them explain how they are the same and how they different from each other, give each on a turn. They may the same because they are both girls or different because one is a boy and one is a girl. They
could have the same or different color hair, eyes, skin, etc.
Physical Activities
Play the game and sing the song Head and shoulders, knees and toes:
Words: (touch the parts you are stinging about)
Head and Shoulders Song
Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose
Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.
Simon Says Game
Play Simon says and have the children touch and or move different body parts.
Example: Simon says touch your hair
Simon says tap your foot
Simon says tip your head
Remember, if Simon doe not say, and you do the action anyway, you lose and have to sit down.
Hands On Activities
Sing a Son of Address (and name)
Sing a rhyme song to teach the child their name and address. Example: To the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb:
My name is Casey Ann Smith
Casey Ann Smith, Casey Ann Smith,
My name is Casey Ann Smith, they just call me Casey
I live at 123 Mountain Lane
123 Mountain Lane, 123 Mountain Lane
I live at 123 Mountain Lane, in Phoenix Arizona.
My phone number is 123-4567,
123-4567, 123-4567
My phone number is 123-4567 Area code 517
N-A-M-E-O Song (teach the child to spell their tune: B-I-N-G-O)
There was mom (or dad) that had a daughter (or son) and Haley (Johnny) was her (his) name-o
H-A-L-E-Y, H-A-L-E-Y, H-A-L-E-Y and Haley was her name-o
J-O-H-NN-Y, J-O-H-NN-Y, J-O-H-NN-Y and johnny was his name-o
For long names you have to group a few letters to make it work.
All About Me Mobile
Trace child’s hands and feet and cut them out. Have the children look through magazines and cut out 4 pictures of things they like. Glue one picture to each side of each hand and foot, punch holes at the top and use string to attach them to a hanger to
make a mobile.
Where Did You Get My Name?
Use a baby name book to look up the meaning of the child’s name. If you have a group of children you can send home a note and ask the parents to tell you how the child got their name. Some come from T.V. shows, others from songs, other are named after a
relative. It can be very interesting.
I Like
Have the children look through magazines and cut out things they like. Paste them to a large piece of construction paper and title the page "I Like"
My Face
Have the children make their own faces on paper plates. Have each child look in a mirror to see what color their are eyes and their hair are. Use felt tip markers for the face and yarn for hair etc.
No One Is Just Like Me!
Using a roll of packaging paper or butchers paper, trace the children's bodies. Have the children color their bodies to resemble themselves. Compare them when they are complete and talk about how each one is the same or different. Display them on a wall
for the parents to see.
Variation: Pre-cut organs like heart stomach lungs, let the children glue the organs on their body and then decorate the faces with yarn for hair wiggle eyes and a smile . Explain to them how each organ works.
Brown Bear And Me Book
Take photos of the child(ren) and glue them on index card(s) to make a book. Staple together. On one page write “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? On the next card write “I see Alicia looking at me (under the photo), do the names in alphabetical
order.
Body Science
In each persons ears there are tiny curved tubes that contain liquid. Your brain can tell how you are changing positions by the movement of the liquid in these tubes, helping you to keep your balance. Get Dizzy: Spin around 10 times in a large area where
you can't get hurt. When you stop you will feel dizzy. This is because when you spin around, the liquid spins inside the tubes. This is how your brain knows you are spinning. To help the children better understand this concept fill a clear plastic bottle
with water, add some glitter and put the cap on the bottle. Spin the bottle quickly then stop. The glitter keeps moving because the water inside the bottle keeps moving after the bottle has stopped. The same way the liquid does in your ears.
X-Ray by Flashlight
Have the child in a dark room, place their hand or fingers over a lighted flashlight. If they look carefully they will see their bones. Have them draw what they see.
X-Ray
Contact a local hospital or veterinary clinic and see they have an sample x-ray sheet you can use to show the children what bones may look like in their body. Take a trip to the hospital and have them show the children a x-ray and the x-ray machine, have
them explain to the children how the machine works.
Biggest Bone
The largest bone in your body is about 20 inches long if you are six feet tall. Measure a height of 6 feet on the wall and make a mark. Now measure 20 of string and place it where the thigh would be, this is the femur bone.
Smallest Bone
The smallest bone in your body is called the stirrup bone. It measures one 10th of an inch long and is located in the ear. Measure a pieces of yarn that size to see how small one 10th of an inch is.
How Many Bones?
There are:
25 bones in your chest
26 bones in your spine
29 bones in your skull
31 bones in each leg
32 bones in each arm
Chose a body part above, using small items of some type (be imaginative, have the items look like bones). Glue that many pieces on a pieces of poster board and write I have ____ bones in my _____.
Body Water
Use a small plastic doll to do this demonstration. Show the child a small plastic doll (a 8” baby doll for example). Fill a zip lock baggie with water. Place the baggie of water next to the baby doll to show how much water would be a part of the dolls
body if she were real. The bag should be fill with water about 3/4 the size of the doll.
How Much Is 8 Pints?
The average human body has about 8 pints of blood. Have the children 8 pints into a large container.
Learning About My Body
"Learning About My Body" book from the Evan Moore Helping Children Learn series, by Jo Ellen Moore & Joy Evans is a great resource for body activities. My copy cost $5.95 at a local book store. It has activities that cover the five senses, brain,
skeleton, heart, lungs, stomach and more. I highly recommend it. It also grants permission to reproduce the pages for the classroom.
A Face Puzzle
From the above mentioned book provide each child with the blank face and the face parts to color and cut out. Have the children glue the parts in the correct place.
Body Parts
Have the children stand in a circle with an adult in the center. The adult shall say "show me your _____". The children touch the appropriate part. Most younger know the basics like mouth, ears, nose. Try parts like ankle, chest, elbow, forehead, hip,
waist, knuckles, shin, sole, thigh, earlobe, abdomen.
Bones and More Bones
When you are born you have 300 bones in your body, as you grow some of these bones fuse (grow) together and once you are an adult you only have 206 bones. Help the child figure out how many less bones you have then them. Our bones all attached are
referred to as a skeleton.
Our bones are alive and are hollow except for a soft material inside known as marrow. This makes our bones lighter and makes it easier for us to move.
My Body Is Mine
In an appropriate manor discuss how sometimes children may feel uncomfortable if there are people that touch them in ways or areas that make them feel uncomfortable or may hurt. This also includes kisses, hugs and pinched cheeks from people they may not
be real familiar with. Talk about how it is okay to tell them you don't like it and please not to do it anymore. Talk about uncomfortable feelings or feeling scared and how it is okay to tell an adult about those feelings. Remind them, their body is
their own, nobody else's. They make the rules for their body, every part of their body.
One way of describing what parts of their body are not for touching by others is this: Tell the child that any part of their body a bathing suit covers (or underpants), are private areas and no one has the right to touch any of those private areas and
it okay to tell them to stop if it happens. A bathing suit description works well for girls and underpants description works well for boys. Using the above descriptions, you don’t have to get to graphic or descriptive with younger children.
What Makes Our Bodies and Skeleton Grow?
Bodies absorb things from the food we eat like calcium which helps us grow. To demonstrate, you can have a bowl of water and a sponge, place the sponges corner in the water and the children will see it absorb the water, pretend the water is minerals and
calcium. This will help them understand how their body absorb minerals and calcium.
You are More Than Just A Body and Bones - You Are You
You are you!!! What you do and how you act, make you the person you are. Have the child tell you what they like about themselves or something about themselves that they are proud of (being nice, polite, being a nice friend).
What Would You Do If?
Self esteem is how we feel about ourselves. What we do helps build our self esteem, when you do good things you feel good about yourself and have good self esteem, when you do bad things you feel bad about yourself and have a lower self esteem.
Have the children answer the following questions and tell if the activity would give them good or bad self esteem.
1). If you took something from a store that you did not pay for.
2) If you helped a friend solve a problem, or helped them find something they lost.
3) If you got angry and hurt another person.
4) If you were to show someone how much you loved them by doing something special for them.
For the next several paragraphs it would be helpful to have a poster of the human body, inside and out. Or a book that has pages to look at.
Am I like Anyone Else?
There are no two people exactly alike in the entire world. That is what makes you the child you are and that makes you very special. Every person has many of the same things such as a brain, nose, mouth, nerves, heart, stomach and such. But there are
some body that can be different such as your eye color, hair color, shape of your mouth and nose. Some children have freckles, some children are small while others are large. There are many different skin colors.
Activity: Look through a magazine and cut out pictures of different people, explain how they are different.
Other ways we are all the same:
We all need to breath. We need oxygen to live, when you breathe, air goes in your lungs, your lungs are in your chest.
We all need a heart to live. Your heart is a muscle that makes your blood move all through your body. Blood travels through your body in very thin tubes - blood vessels. Your blood is what takes the oxygen you breathe to different parts of your
body. Your heart is a little larger than your fist.
Activity: make a fist, your heart is just a little big bigger than that.
We all sneeze, when germs get in your nose you sneeze to get them out.
Activity: fold your arms over your chest and breath hard, you will feel your lungs fill with air.
Hidden Parts
Your brain is the most important part of your body, it is what makes you think and remember. Brains can be different sizes but a bigger brain does not make you smarter than a person with a smaller brain. It only means your head is bigger than theirs.
Your brain get messages from the other parts of your body, that is why you can feel pain and tell the difference between hot and cold. Your body has nerves that send your brain those types of messages.
Activity: from a poster or book see what your brain looks like. Find out what the size of your brain might be.
Parts We Can See
We can all see our skin. Everyone can have a different color of skin. Skin is what covers our body and holds all of our insides in to protect them. Your skin also has nerves that send messages to your brain. Our skin has hair growing out of it, on your
head, arms and legs. When you get cold the hair muscles tighten to try and keep you warm but it does not work as well as it would on a cat because we don’t have as much hair as a cat. When the hair muscles tighten we get goose bumps and your hair stands
on end.
Activity: if it is possible go from a warm area to a cold area and experience goose bumps. Do you see a difference in the hair on your arms?
Moving Right Along
We can move because we have muscles, they make your bones move so you can walk, run, skip and hop. Muscles also let you smile and talk. The more you use your muscles the stronger you can get.
Activity: do a few exercises that would make you stronger. Arm twirls, running, sit ups, pull ups.
Time Line
Give the child strips of paper 8 1/2 inches wide and four inches high. Label one sheet for each year they are old. If they are five, there should be five pieces numbered 1 through 5. Each page represents their age at that time, on page 1 - have them tell
about something special that happened to them at age one, do the same for the remaining ages. Glue these on a large pieces of construction paper in the proper order. If you are working with a group of children you may need their parents to help with the
information. Have the children bring their baby books if they have them. This is also a way to help them come with ideas.
Games
Who’s Missing?
Sit in a circle. One child is picked to go out of the room. One child is picked from the circle to hide under a blanket in the middle of the circle. The child who left the room comes back in and has to guess who is under the blanket.
Hokey Pokey
The Hokey Pokey is a great game to play when teaching children the parts of their body.
Songs
I am Special (tune Fere Jacques)
I am special, I am special
If you look you will see
Someone very special, someone very special
Yes it's me, yes, it's me
Fingerplays / Body Plays
Body play: I Belong To Me, an action rhyme for Children
By Rebecca Mahoney
Look, look. What do you see?
Two bending knees that belong to me.
Right, Left. (Bend Knees.)
It's my body; I belong to me.
Look, look. What do you see?
Two clapping hands that belong to me.
Clap hands; Bend knees.
It's my body; I belong to me.
Look, look. What do you see?
Two stomping feet that belong to me.
Stomp feet; clap hands; bend knees.
It's my body; I belong to me.
Look, look. What do you see?
Two pointy elbows that belong to me.
Point elbows; stomp feet; clap hands, bend knees.
It's my body; I belong to me.
Look, look. What do you see?
Two floppy ears that belong to me.
Flop ears; point elbows; stomp feet; clap hands; bend knees.
It's my body; I belong to me.
Keep rhythm by patting thighs. Do action as mentioned (i.e. bend knees, etc.) Point to self during last line on words "my" and "me."
Poems
Active Me
I wiggle my thumbs and clap my hands
And then I stomp my feet
I turn to the left and then to the right
And make my fingers meet
I raise them high and let them down
And give another clap
I wave my hand and fold my hands
And put them in my lap
All By Myself
There are many things that I can do
All by myself
I can comb my hair and brush my teeth
All by myself
I can get dressed and wash my face
All by myself
I can clean up my toys and make my bed
All by myself
Snacks
Decorate gingerbread boys to match each child.