BLAST Early Learning

Self Esteem

Books:

The Pig’s Picnic by Keiko Kasza

Mr. Pig, on his way to call on Miss Pig, allows his animal friends to persuade him to don various handsome portions of their own bodies, with an alarming result.

Skin Again by Bell Hooks

Celebrates the freedom of looking beyond the color of skin and enjoying the heart inside.

Things That Make You Feel Good

Things That Make You Feel Bad

by Todd Parr

An illustrated list of twelve good things, like bubble baths and bedtime stories, and twelve things that are not so nice, like chicken pox and mosquito bites.

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Rhyme:

Things I Could Be When I Grow Up

By Lois Peters
I might want to be a movie star and be on the TV,
(hands on either side of face, fingers spread apart)

Maybe I’ll be a policeman with a big shiny badge on me,
(stand straight, right hand flat on chest)

Maybe I’ll be a clown with a wig and a big red nose,
(make a funny pose)

Or, maybe I’ll be a dancer and stand up on my toes.
(stand on toes)

Maybe I’ll be an astronaut and blast off into space.
(stoop down and jump up on "space")

For now, I’ll just be little me, with a great big smile on my face.
(hands frame face with a big smile)

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Vocabulary Word:

Covering: n. Something that protecs, hides, or covers something.

Example:"The skin I'm in is just a covering."
(taken from Skin Again by Bell Hooks)

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Activities:

Me Puppets

Encourage the children to make "me" puppets. Use a paper plate as a face and tongue depressors as holders. Provide yarn, crayons, markers, scissors, and glue. Encourage your students to describe their emotions on the puppets. Are they happy, angry, sad, etc.?

Eye Color Graph

Make a graph to illustrate blue, brown, green, and gray eyes. Let each child look in a mirror and then mark the appropriate square on the graph using stickers, colored dots, or name labels.

Felt Faces

Provide felt-covered coffee cans and different sizes, shapes and colors of felt cutouts. Encourage the children to use the cutouts to make faces on the cans.

Things I Like

Invite the children to cut out magazine pictures of things they like.

Pizza Faces

Let the children make "face pizzas" on English muffins. Encourage them to arrange the toppings to look like different facial expressions.

Gift Wrapping

Provide a variety of boxes and wrapping paper for the children to practice wrapping presents for their friends.

Birthday Party

Provide paper plates, playdough, wrapped boxes, and party hats to role-play a birthday party.

Feely Box

Place objects with different textures in a bag or a box with a hole cut in one end. Have the children reach in and describe the objects they touch, or match objects with the same texture.

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Literature:

Hush, Little Baby by Brian Pinkney

An illustrated version of the traditional folk song in which a father promises the world to his restless baby daughter.

Carry Me! by Rosemary Wells

Soothing verse and celebrating art by an award-winning author/illustrator enhance a perfect gift for a baby which contains three poems just right for sharing at bedtime or anytime.

All The Colors Of The Earth by Sheila Hamanaka

Reveals in verse that despite outward differences, children everywhere are essentially the same and all are lovable.

Be Boy Buzz by Bell Hooks

Celebrates being bold, all bliss boy, all bad boy beast, boy running, boy jumping, boy sitting down, and being in love with being a boy.